Charles Babbage, Pioneer of the Computer 0192814913, 0192814915, 9780192814913

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CHARLES BABBAGE Pioneer ofthe Computer

Charles Babbage by S. Laurence, 1845.

CHARLES BABBAGE Pioneer ofthe Computer

ANTHONY HYMAN

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

1984

Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford 0x2 6dp

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and associated companies in Beirut Berlin Ibadan Mexico City Nicosia Oxford is a trade mark of Oxford University Press © R. A. Hyman 1982

First published in the UK 1982 by Oxford University Press Reprinted 1983 First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback 1984 AU rights reserved. No part ofthis publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way oftrade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in anyform ofbinding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Hyman, Anthony Charles Babbage.—(Oxford paperbacks) 1. Babbage, Charles 2. Mathematicians— Great Britain—Biography I. Title 31 o'.924 QA29.B2

ISBN 0-19-281491-3 Printed in Hong Kong

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The greater part of this book was written during 1977 and 1978 while holding the Alistair Horne fellowship, and I am greatly indebted to Alistair Horne, and to the Warden and Fellows of St Antony’s College, Oxford, for provision of congenial working conditions and valuable help. I am also indebted to St John’s College for their hospitality while working on archives in Cambridge. During years of research on Babbage and his Engines I have incurred far more obligations than can be individually acknowledged, but to all who have drawn my attention to relevant material, I take the opportunity to offer my heartfelt thanks. Mr Alfred Van Sinderen has transcribed manuscripts from his collection and kindly permitted me to quote from them; Michael Havinden joined me in exploring Babbage’s home territory in South Devon; I have enjoyed many discussions about Babbage’s Engines with the late Maurice Trask; Professor Christopher Platt read chapter eight, and Professor Brian Randell all the chapters on the Engines, and made valuable suggestions; Professor Margaret Gowing provided much help, and Professor Peter Matthias lent a helping hand in tackling the intractable problem of securing access to banking records; Michael Laithwaite identified John Babbage’s house; Mr Erwin Tomash provided photocopies of American doctoral theses, and Mr V. Bonham-Carter showed me the typescript of his book Authors as a Profession; Mr C. H. Wills kindly provided photographs of the Babbage family; Ms Jane Raimes of the Science Museum and the Director of the Science Museum Library placed invaluable facilities at my disposal. I am also greatly indebted to the librarians and staffs of The Royal Society of London, The Institute for Historical Research, The Crawford Library, the libraries of St John’s and Trinity College, Cambridge, The Oxford Museum of the History of Science, the manuscript rooms of the British Library and the Bodleian Library, the Devon County Record Office, and the Southwark Room of the Southwark Public Library. Mr A. K. Corry of the Science Museum kindly investigated the gear trains of the Difference Engine. For permission to quote from manuscripts I am also indebted to: The Royal Society of London, Miss Elizabeth Buxton, Trinity and St John’s Colleges in Cambridge, The Director of the Science Museum, The British Libraries Board, Lord Knebworth and the Earl of Lytton, and the Burndy Library. This work has further been assisted by grants from the Leverhulme Foundation, The Royal Society, and The British Academy. Anthony Hyman

CONTENTS

List ofIllustrations Abbreviations Principal Sources

ix xiii xv

Prelude: Child of Two Revolutions 1. Childhood 2. Cambridge 3. Marriage: Early Years of a Philosopher in London 4. Science in Action: Start on the First Engine 5. The Death of Georgiana: Continental Travel 6. Reform 7. Science and Reform: The Royal Society 8. On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures 9. The Great Engine 10. The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise 11. Rail, Steam, and the British Association 12. The Analytical Engines: Social Life 13. Analytical Engines and the Circumlocution Office 14. The Great Exhibition 15. The Death of Ada: A Family Reunion 16. Final Passages in the Life of a Philosopher Epilogue: From the Analytical Engines to the Modem Computer

i 5 20 31 47 62 75 88 103 123 136 143 164 190 211 225 241 254

Published Works ofCharles Babbage Appendices A. From Passages from the Life ofa Philosopher B. On the Mathematical Powers of the Calculating Engine Index

256 261 268 277

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Charles Babbage by S. Laurence, 1845. Oil.

Frontispiece

National Portrait Gallery.

PLATES

Between pages 16 and 17

1. Old London Bridge by J. M. W. Turner, 1824. Watercolour. Victoria and Albert Museum.

2. Fore Street, Totnes, c. i860. From Deckemant’s Antiquities of England, Vol. 12. Devon County Record Office.

3. John Babbage’s house, with shopfront remodelled in the nineteenth century, c. i860. Deckemant’s Antiquities. Devon County Record Office.

4. Guildhall, Totnes, c. i860. Deckemant’s Antiquities. Devon County Record Office.

5. Totnes from the river Dart by J. M. W. Turner, c. 1824. Watercolour. British Museum.

Between pages 48 and 49

6. Florence by J. M. W. Turner, c. 1827. Watercolour. British Museum.

7. Georgiana Babbage, from a miniature. The Wills Collection of Photographica.

8. Charles Babbage aged 40. Pen etching published by Colnaghi. Trinity College Library, Cambridge.

9. Bridgnorth Bridge by J. M. W. Turner. Victoria and Albert Museum.

10. First Difference Engine. Completed Part, 1832. Crown Copyright. Science Museum, London.

Between pages 112 and 113 11. South Devon Railway, where it passed through Babbage’s farm at Dainton. Science Museum, London.

12. Charles Babbage aged 48. Drawing by William Brockendon. Science Museum, London.

x

List ofIllustrations

13. Mary Anne Hollier. Probably copied from a daguerreotype or a calotype taken c. 1842. The Wilk Collection of Photographies.

14. Augusta Ada, Lady King, later Countess of Lovelace by Margaret Carpenter, c. 1835. Oil. Crown Copyright. National Physical Laboratory.

15. J. M. Jacquard. Woven silk portrait. Victoria and Albert Museum.

Between pages 176 and 177

16. Charles Babbage, c. 1850. Photograph by Antoine Claudet. National Portrait Gallery.

17. Charles Babbage, c. i860. The Wilk Collection of Photographica.

18. Mary Anne Hollier, 1856. The Wilk Collection of Photographica.

19. Henry Prevost Babbage and his family, c. 1870. The Wilk Collection of Photographica.

20. Experimental Carry Column for an Analytical Engine, late 1860s. Replica. Science Museum, London.

21. Mill of minimal Analytical Engine under construction when Babbage died. In this photograph the racks stick out in positions they could never have reached in use. Science Museum, London.

FIGURES IN TEXT

1. Ground and premises in the occupation of Charles Babbage, p. 128 Public Record Office, London.

2. Plan of Analytical Engine with grid layout, 1858. Redrawn,

p. 243

TECHNICAL DRAWINGS

Science Museum

Between pages 256 and 257 Small multipurpose machine tool, 1858. Difference Engine No. 1. End elevation, 1830. Difference Engine No. 1. Plan and side elevation, 1830. Difference Engine No. 3. Sliding mechanism for sequence control, 1849. 5. First drawing of circular arrangement of new engine, 1834.

1. 2. 3. 4.

List ofIllustrations xi 6. Plan for part of calculating engine with rack interconnection system, 18357. Superposition of motion, 1836. 8. Two distinct engines with thirty figures each, 1836. 9. Method of carrying by anticipation, 1836. 10. General plan of mill, 1837. 11. General plan of Mr. Babbage’s Great Calculating Engine, 1840. 12. Direction of Analytical Engine, 1841. 13. Plan of bolts for store and mill, c. 1858. 14. Digit counting apparatus, 1859. 15. Part of mill, 1864. 16. Apparatus for registering time of workmen.

ABBREVIATIONS

The British Library Devon County Record Office The Royal Society of London Reflections on the Decline ofScience in England and on Some ofIts Causes Economy of Manufactures On the Economy ofMachinery and Manufactures Passages Passagesfrom the Life ofa Philosopher

BL DCRO RS Decline of Science

Journals Econ. Hist. Rev. Edin. Phil. Jrl. Mem. Astron. Soc. Notes and Records Phil. Mag. Phil. Trans.

Proc. Geol. Soc. Proc. Inst. Civil Eng. Proc. Roy. Soc. Quart. Jrl. Geol. Soc.

Economic History Review Edinburgh Philosophical Journal Memoirs ofthe Astronomical Society Notes and Records ofthe Royal Society ofLondon The Philosophical Magazine Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Proceedings ofthe Geological Society Proceedings ofthe Institute ofCivil Engineers Proceedings ofthe Royal Society ofLondon Quarterly Journal ofthe Geological Society

PRINCIPAL SOURCES

Royal Society—Babbage/Herschel Correspondence. British Library—Babbage Letters and Papers. Science Museum—Babbage Drawings, Notations, and Notebooks. Museum for the History of Science, Oxford—Buxton Papers. Devon County Record Office—Totnes, Teignmouth, and Ippelpen records. Periodicals Library, Cambridge—Babbage Papers. Theses consulted include:

Bruce Collier, ‘The Little Engines that Could’ve’, Harvard, 1970. Walter Lyle Bell, ‘Charles Babbage, Philosopher, Reformer, Inventor’, Oregon, 1975John David Yule, ‘Impact of Religious Thought in the Second Quarter of the Nineteenth Century’, Cantab. 1976.

PRELUDE

Child of Two Revolutions The England into which Babbage was born was almost entirely rural. To the foreign visitor arriving from the Continent the southern counties presented the aspect of a well-kept garden. Even in London everyone lived within a quarter of an hour’s walk of the countryside. Eighty years later, when Babbage died, the majority of Englishmen lived in towns and cities, and England was by far the most highly industrialized country that had ever been seen. For a brief period Britain had been the workshop of the world, but the nation was soon to learn that its industrial supremacy had gone for ever, the technological lead, particularly in the new science-based industries, passing to Germany and the rapidly developing United States of America. During his life Babbage was the leading advocate of the systematic application of science to industry and commerce. He played an important part in the development of both pure science and technology, and with a few of his friends made a great impact on British industrial development. They had seen—and Babbage was the first to see and saw most clearly—the dangers for British industry if scientific methods were not generally applied. Although the industrial revolution had been made by practical men, with little direct help from the higher reaches of science, industry could no longer continue to develop satisfactorily without scientific method. Babbage and his friends fought the battle for applied science on a national scale, and lost. The consequences of this defeat remain the subject of active debate. Babbage was first a mathematician. He made important contributions to pure mathematics and, with two friends, transformed mathematics in Cambridge and thus throughout Britain. At the age of thirty he made a change of direction startling in its suddenness. He began to construct a machine for making mathematical tables: the manufacture of number. Building this machine, his first Difference Engine, led to crucial advances in machine tools and engineering techniques affecting the whole development of precision mechanical engineering. In 1834 Babbage started on a new project, the Analytical Engines. Unique precursors of the modern computer, almost forgotten and then rediscovered in the middle of the twentieth century, they are one of the great intellectual achievements in the history of mankind. When constructing his first Engine Babbage turned to the general study of machinery and manufacture, developing his doctrine of the union of theory and

2

Prelude: Child of Two Revolutions

practice.1 Later, in his campaigns for the application of scientific method to industrial problems, he had allies among the engineers, including Fairbairn and Whitworth. But Babbage was the central figure, and he continually pursued the application of statistical methods to economic and social problems. What Condorcet was to the French revolution, Babbage was to English reform. Charles Babbage was very sociable and became a leading figure in English society. A man of immense personal charm and boundless vitality, he mixed in widely varied circles from his early days in Cambridge. Societies and clubs seemed to arise almost spontaneously wherever he moved. His friends tended at first to be liberal, later often moderately radical; though as the reform movement waned and they grew older they became more conservative. He was equally at ease with intelligent working men, country clergymen, men of science, at court, or at the dining tables of the aristocracy. Babbage knew virtually all the liberal reformers of his time; and as leading man of science was a respected figure among them. His acquaintance on the Continent, in France and Italy, and to a lesser extent in Austria and Prussia, was wide, and he became an important European scientific figure. By chance he became a friend of several of the Bonapartes, who considered European revolution to be their family’s profession. Babbage became a militant reformer, founding scientific societies, launching the ‘decline of science’ campaign, the scientific counterpart to the struggle for the first reform bill, and participating, both as campaign organizer and candidate, in liberal and radical politics. In the 1820s the scientific movement in England had a radical tincture which it has never quite regained. On the Continent Babbage’s friends—Arago in France, von Humboldt in Prussia, the Bonapartes and Menabrea in Italy—played their parts in the liberal movement. Babbage was the child of two revolutions: industrial revolution in Britain, and political and social revolution in France. London at the end of the eighteenth century was both the capital and the industrial centre of Britain, and also the commercial centre of a great trading network. The ships on the Thames, which fascinated the young Babbage, were continual reminders of the importance of foreign trade, as were the great London docks built by John Rennie to prevent the pilfering of valuable colonial produce. Rennie’s sons, also engineers, were to figure in Babbage’s life. In the shops could be seen products of Staffordshire’s potteries and Manchester’s looms. A few of the great steam engines at work were clear evidence of the industrial revolution in progress. As early as 1718-22 John and Thomas Lombe had built a silk mill at Derby, five or six storeys high, employing three hundred hands, and powered by water from the Derwent. It was the first of the modern factories with automatic tools and specialized functions for operatives. But it was not until the 1770s, when power-driven machinery reached the 'See note. p. 4. (end of chapter).

Prelude: Child of Two Revolutions

3

woollen, iron and cotton industries, that industry had much effect on the countryside, and then most works were situated remotely to be near a falling stream which would supply the power. Later in his life Babbage was to make the most detailed study of the operation of factories and their machinery, but during his early years the overwhelming visual impression was of a traditional way of life slowly changing. After the turmoil of the seventeenth century, most of the eighteenth was a long period of peaceful development, scarcely disturbed by distant conflict. Readers ofJane Austen will recall how little even the Napoleonic wars affected everyday life in the English countryside. Nevertheless, by the end of the century it was obvious to the enquiring mind that the industrial revolution was well on its way. And the young Babbage saw something else besides: as a banker’s son he saw that most potent of forces, mobilized capital in action. A banker’s life is the reduction of all considerations to quantitative terms. This mechanically inclined and mathematically gifted child learned the lessons well. After the death of Newton, English science lapsed into an age of relaxing mediocrity. There was nothing in the eighteenth century to compare with the great spate of discoveries of the scientific groups of the interregnum and the early Royal Society. But the very dullness can be misleading. The habit of a more scientific approach was spreading into every part of life. A great deal of hard ground-clearing was going on, while the sciences aspired to a Newtonian clarity and perfection. Abstract science in fact developed far more rapidly in the France of the enlightenment and among the encyclopaedists than in the country where the industrial revolution was taking place, suggesting a prima facie answer to a question often asked: ‘What was the relationship between science and technology during the early phases of the industrial revolution ?’ It would seem that the industrial revolution owed almost nothing directly to the more theoretical sciences. In a sense the very question is misplaced: it only becomes apposite after the 1830s, when pure science began to develop independently and apart from the inferior applied sciences. In the eighteenth century there was no clear dividing line between science and technology. During the English civil war and the interregnum, inspired by the ideas of Francis Bacon and the millenarianism of the time, Samuel Hartlib and his associates advanced many proposals for applying science to the requirements of society. But they were premature: neither science nor society was ready. Nevertheless, their ideas were among the principal formative influences on the Royal Society and their interest in the use of scientific methods in agriculture is reflected in the early programme of the Society. During the eighteenth century the Academie Royale des Sciences made repeated declarations of the importance of applying science but did little about it in any organized manner. It was in France after the revolution that the first serious attempt was made to develop science systematically for practical ends.

4

Prelude: Child of Two Revolutions

The metric system was the most obvious result. Napoleon fostered scientific development with an eye to its military usefulness. Thus when Babbage came as a student to look at the contemporary world of science outside Britain it was natural in the first place to look to France. Seeking for the main formative influences on Babbage’s scientific views we find in England first the great progenitor, Francis Bacon, then William Petty, Newton, and the Lunar Society—Babbage came to know the grandchildren of its members. But more immediately he was influenced by Condorcet, de Prony, and Napoleon’s proteges among the Parisian men of science. While the Napoleonic wars gave a considerable impetus to technical development in England—the Portsmouth block-making machinery, which played a crucial part in establishing the preconditions for Babbage’s Difference Engine, is one example—they also resulted in the establishment by Pitt of a reactionary regime which had a claustrophobic effect. Joseph Priestley’s house was ransacked by a mob inspired by the authorities and the Lunar Society ceased to exist. The result was to turn Babbage’s generation of young mathematicians at Cambridge militantly liberal. NOTE

Babbage’s repeated insistence on the importance of collecting ‘facts’ places him squarely in the mainstream of the Baconian tradition. The importance of his work in this field is well illustrated in the report of the secretary to the Smithsonian (Joseph Henry) for 1873, P- 23: In the report for 1856, is given a plan by the late Mr Charles Babbage, of London, of a series of tables to be entitled the ‘Constants of Nature and Art’. These tables were to contain all the facts which can be expressed by numbers, in the various sciences and arts, such as the atomic weight of bodies, specific gravity, elasticity, specific heat, conducting power, melting point, weight of different gases, liquids, and solids, strength of different materials, velocity of sound, of cannon-balls, of electricity, of light, of flight of birds and speed of animals, list of refractive indices, dispersive indices, polarizing angles, etc. The value of such a work, as an aid to original investigation, as well as in the application of science to the useful arts, can scarcely be estimated. To carry out the plan fully, however, would require much labor and perhaps the united effort of different institutions and individuals, devoted to special lines of research. Any part of the entire plan may, however, be completed in itself... The Institution commenced about fifteen years ago to collect materials on several of the points of this general plan...

After an interruption caused by the civil war a series of tables of specific gravities, boiling points, and melting points was compiled from the best authorities. However, as the Institution was short of funds, the tables were printed as a private venture.

I

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Childhood Charles Babbage was born on 26 December 1791 in his father’s house in Walworth, Surrey, five hundred yards from the famous hostelry of the Elephant and Castle.1 His parents had recently married and come to live near London where his father was working, probably as merchant and banker: the roles were interchangeable at the time. Both Babbage’s parents sprang from old Devonshire families. His ancestry can be traced to Totnes, Teignmouth, and the surrounding countryside: yeomen and goldsmiths, a solid well-established West Country background. Walworth was among the fields, a hamlet attached to Newington. Within walking distance or a short ride across London bridge from the City, it was a sensible choice for a country family. In his autobiography, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, Babbage noted that ‘In the time of Henry the Eighth one of my ancestors, together with a hundred men, were taken prisoner at the siege of Calais’.12 There is also a tradition in the Babbage family, coming through a third cousin of Charles, that four brothers, left behind after the fall of Calais, were expelled from France with the Huguenots in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and returned to Devonshire, two settling in the North of the county and two in the South. Again, another family tradition recorded that ‘When William the Third landed in Torbay, another ancestor of mine, a yeoman possessing some small estate, undertook to distribute his proclamations. For this bit of high treason he was rewarded with a silver medal, which I well remember seeing, when I was a boy. It had descended to a very venerable and truthful old lady, an unmarried aunt, the historian of our family, on whose authority the identity of the medal I saw with that given by King William must rest.’3 The heartland of the Babbage territory is the triangle defined by Totnes, Dartmouth, and Teignmouth, rich farming country largely formed of the small fields and winding lanes typical of land which has never been open fields. What open fields there had been in Devon were probably enclosed by the end of the fourteenth century.4 From Totnes one can pass down the winding estuary of 1 Baptismal register of St Mary Newington, 6 Jan. 1792, County Hall, London. The birthday of 26 Dec. was known in the family. 2 Passages, 5. 3 Ibid. 4 W. G. Hoskins, Making ofthe English Landscape, 215-16, Penguin, 1970.

6

Childhood

the Dart to Dartmouth, perched on the cliff, where Thomas Newcomen lived and worked. To the north, past the fishing village of Brixham, is the expanse of Tor Bay, used during the Napoleonic wars as a naval base. There Charles saw Napoleon on his way to exile in St. Helena. Torquay first emerged as a residence for naval personnel; later becoming a summer resort, where Charles spent several summers with his young family after his marriage. From Torquay the coast continues round the cliffs to Babbacombe and Marychurch; then north again to the mouth of the Teign. On the north side of the estuary is Teignmouth where Charles’s father had a house after his retirement. It was Charles’s home for about eight years between the ages of fifteen and twenty three. To the north-west of Totnes, past Dartington, Staverton, and Shinners Bridge, lay Buckfastleigh, Ashburton, and the wild moors. To the north was Exeter, the capital and richest city of Devon. To the west was the great port and naval base of Plymouth. But for centuries the extraordinarily wealthy Totnes was the second town in Devon. Before Babbage’s time the West Country had been a prosperous area for wool, cloth, mining, and primitive industry. One of the effects of the Industrial Revolution was to shift the industrial centre of Britain northwards. The SouthWest fell into relative decline, and with this decline Bristol lost to Liverpool its ancient position as England’s leading Atlantic port. Babbage was to help the young Brunel in a brave but ultimately futile attempt to maintain Bristol’s supremacy. It is curious, and may be more than coincidence, that from Totnes and its port at Dartmouth should come not only Charles Babbage but Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen, pioneers of the steam engine. The Saverys were prosperous merchants, an old Totnes family. In about 1614 they purchased the nearby manors of Shilston and Spiddlescombe, and in 1745 we find Benjamin Babbage, grandfather of Charles, concerned with a Mary Savery in land purchase near Harberton.5 Savery, who was granted on 25 July 1698 the historic patent for ‘raising water by the impellant force of fire’, was one of the most fertile inventors of his time. But Newcomen was really more important, and his own inventions were made entirely independently of Savery. He was a blacksmith and many people have found it hard to believe that such a man could have been responsible for the remarkable developments of the working steam engine. But we should think of Newcomen as working in iron, copper, brass, tin, or lead, visiting also the Cornish mines to sell tools and his services as a skilled craftsman. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Devon and Cornwall had been producing most of Europe’s tin, and this prosperous mining is the background to the society that produced Newcomen and Savery. In 5 Deed in possession of Mrs Elizabeth Babbage: indenture between Benjamin Babbage for the one part; Mary Savery and others for the other part.

Childhood

7

Newcomen’s time Devon mining was in decline but evidently a strong tradition of craftsmanship remained. Newcomen’s engine comes from innumerable unrecorded attempts by the craftsmen of Devon to pump water from the mines, and such work calls forth a wealth of skill and talent which is continually underestimated by.academic commentators. Newcomen’s work and much other skilled craftsmanship was part of local tradition when Charles Babbage was growing up. Totnes appears as a small town in the tenth century. Coins were minted there intermittently between the reigns of Edgar and William Rufus. On the hill the castle site was fortified at an early date and earthen fortifications were thrown up round the houses by the river. Stone ramparts replaced the earthworks early in the twelfth century. The lovely Fore Street, still the axis of the town, joined castle to river. Near Totnes are Dartington Hall and Berry Pomeroy, castle of the Seymours. Babbage owned a field in Totnes under the walls of the ruined castle. It had been in the family since early in the eighteenth century, associated originally with a house they owned at Northgate.6 He kept the field all his life. If you stand on the walls of Totnes castle looking across to Dartington, Babbage’s field slopes down below, still rough grazing. There used also to be an orchard nearby known as ‘Babbage’s orchard’. In the reign of Henry VIII Totnes, second only to Exeter in Devon, was a thriving cloth town, full of rich merchants. But it had been slow in developing the ‘new draperies’ and by the early seventeenth century it was in decline, its place being taken by Tiverton, Crediton, and other new towns; although a guide of 1825 refers to Totnes as noted for its serges.7 By the latter part of the seventeenth century the Babbage family was well established. We get glimpses not of great wealth but of comfortable circumstances. For example Charles recorded that ‘an ancestor married one of two daughters, the only children of a wealthy physician, Dr Burthogge, an intimate friend of John Locke’.8 The first definite evidence we have of the family in Totnes is on 18 April 1628 when Roger Babbidge payed a poor rate of 4d. This Roger had at least two sons, Roger and Christopher. Roger was buried in 1665 and in February 1666 we find the widow Babbidge and Roger Babbidge, the son, paying rates on separate houses. The second Roger Babbidge is recorded as having four children, Richard, the eldest, Hester, John, ancestor of Charles, and Sarah. On 19 April 1687 Roger Babbidge and Richard Babbidge were admitted members of the guild. The Babbages were becoming, if they

6 DCRO, Rate books and other documents. 7 John Hannaford, The History of Totnes, Its Neighbourhood and Berry-Pomeroy Castle in Devonshire, 19, Totnes (1825 ?). 8 Passages, 5.

8

Childhood

were not already, part of the commercial oligarchy which controlled old Totnes.9 In 1719, as a large deed records, John Babbage—the name had by now assumed its modern form—purchased from the borough a lease of 2,000 years on a house next to another he already owned. Probably John Babbage was living in this latter house. The borough of Totnes was selling a number of leases at the time: raising money and no doubt dividing up the town’s property among the leading families. The house whose lease John Babbage purchased still exists. John is described sometimes as shopkeeper, sometimes as goldsmith. Quite likely John’s forebears had also been goldsmiths, as sons often continued their fathers’ trades, but of this there is no direct evidence, and John was the younger son. From the land tax assessment for 1747 we find that Mrs Babbage—she must be John’s widow—owns four houses and Benjamin, her son, another house. Evidently John had made money. Benjamin Babbage was a leading figure in Totnes. In 1740 we find Mr Benjamin Babbage goldsmith marrying by licence Mistress Margaret Laver: people of consequence. Benjamin became church warden and was mayor of Totnes in 1754. He had four children who lived to maturity: John (b. 1741); Anne (b. 1747), probably the maiden aunt whom Charles described as the family historian; Margaret (b. 1749), who married Joseph Taunton; and Benjamin (b. 1753), father of Charles. From these bare facts and other information provided by Charles we can sketch out a picture of his father’s life. Charles noted that his father had made most of his fortune by his own efforts although he came from a wealthy family. Old Benjamin died intestate in December 1761 when his younger son Benjamin was only seven or eight years old. The elder son, John, became a surgeon. Evidently he was little interested in the trade of goldsmith. A Dr Babbage took over the Dartington Vestry contract for two pounds ten shillings a year in 1770 and was still there in 1790: probably the same man. As elder son John inherited the family property: old Benjamin’s houses later appear in his name. Thus when young Benjamin grew up it fell to him to re-establish the prosperity of the family business, which he did with conspicuous success. Charles also admitted to more disreputable ancestors and relates a curious story about one of them, possibly the brother10 of his greatgrandfather, John: Somewhere about 1700 a member of my family, one Richard Babbage, who appears to have been a very wild fellow, having tried his hand at various trades, and given them all up, offended a wealthy relative. To punish this idleness, his relative entailed all his large estates upon eleven different 9 The story of the Babbages in Totnes has been sketched mainly from records in the Devon County Record Office. 10 This might from the dates have been another Richard, son ofJohn’s brother.

Childhood

9

people, after whom he gave it to this Richard Babbage, who, had there been no entail, would have taken them as heir-at-law. Ten of these lives had dropped, and the eleventh was in a consumption, when Richard Babbage took it into his head to go off to America with Bamfylde Moore Carew, the King of the Beggars. The last only of the eleven lives existed when he embarked, and that life expired within twelve months after Richard Babbage sailed. The estates remained in possession of the representatives of the eleventh in the entail. If it could have been proved that Richard Babbage had survived twelve months after his voyage to America, these estates would have remained in my own branch of the family. I possess a letter from Richard Babbage, dated on board the ship in which he sailed for America. In the year 1773 it became necessary to sell a portion of this property, for the purpose of building a church at Ashbrenton. A private Act of Parliament was passed for that purpose, in which the rights of the true heir were reserved.11

The profession of Charles Babbage’s forebears as goldsmiths is a crucial factor in his background. Although amongst the early country bankers few seem to have been gold or silversmiths,11 12 in London the progression from goldsmith to banker was typical; and it was in any case a natural progression. Whether Charles’s father actually worked as a practising craftsman is not known, but it is likely enough and would go far to explaining Charles’s early competence as a craftsman as well as his broad mechanical interests. In the goldsmith turned banker we have two of Charles’s great interests combined: precision manufacture and a quantitative approach to economic and social problems. We may picture the young Benjamin gradually building up his banking activities in Totnes and the surrounding district, developing and extending his father’s business and range of contacts. There is no reason to assume that he formally opened a bank. Indeed that is unlikely, but much could be done without the formality. In particular the cloth trade required capital. But the cloth trade was declining and, like that much greater Devonshire banker, Francis Baring, Benjamin moved to London, the commercial and banking centre of the country. To make the move he must already have been a prosperous man with many connections and a thriving business. It would have been natural for the Babbages to act as local agents for banks in other towns. Two houses with which they may well have had arrangements were Praeds Bank of Truro, founded before 1774, and the Exeter Bank, which opened its doors on 9 July 1769, first of the banks in Exeter. Among its original partners was William Mackworth Praed. Later Benjamin Babbage was to be a partner in Praeds London bank and it is not difficult to see how the connection 11 Passages, 5-6. 12 L. S. Pressnell, Country Banking in the Industrial Revolution, Clarendon Press, 1956.

io Childhood was made. From late in the 1780s the Industrial Revolution gathered momentum leading to an increasing demand for credit and the opening of new banks. It was a time when bankers could thrive. The careless went to the wall but Benjamin was exceedingly careful. In about 1790 he married Elizabeth (Betty) Plumleigh Teape. The cautious Benjamin had waited to get married until he had a substantial fortune. His bride also came from an old Totnes family. A James Teape wa,s mayor of Totnes in 1731,1741,and 1746; a Samuel Teape in 1757. The flagstone of the Teapes’ vault can still be seen under the tower of Totnes church; the Babbages also had a vault in Totnes church near the tower before the building was remodelled in the nineteenth century.13 The church associations of the family were close and played an important part in Charles’s thought. It is likely that the Babbages had been a nonconformist family, grandfather Benjamin being the first to conform, a common practice among families on their way up in the world. The stern conscience of his father, an inheritance from the non­ conformists, seems softened in Charles by the Teape charm. But the intense dedication to work remained, transferred to mathematical and philosophical pursuits. It was in 1791 that Benjamin took his bride to London where they bought the house in Crosby Row on the Walworth Road, now in the borough of Southwark. While they were there the row of houses was renamed York Place and then Chatham Place. Later it became Walworth Road. The house was pulled down when Larcome Street was made.14 In the autumn of 1791 Michael Faraday was born to a poor family near the Elephant. On 26 December 1791, in the recently built terrace house in Crosby Row, Charles Babbage was born. Charles relates two stories from his early years in Walworth: Two events which impressed themselves forcibly on my memory happened, I think, previously to my eighth year. When about five years old, I was walking with my nurse, who had in her arms an infant brother of mine, across London Bridge, holding, as I thought, by her apron. I was looking at the ships in the river. On turning round to speak to her, I found that my nurse was not there, and that I was alone upon London Bridge. My mother had always impressed upon me the necessity of great caution in passing any street-crossing: I went on, therefore, quietly until I reached Tooley Street, where I remained watching the passing vehicles, in order to find a safe opportunity of crossing that very busy street. In the mean time the nurse, having lost one of her charges, had gone to the crier, who proceeded immediately to call, by the ringing of his bell, the attention of the public to the fact that a young philosopher was lost, and to the still more important fact that five shillings would be the reward of his fortunate discoverer. I well remember sitting on the steps of the door of the linendraper’s shop on the opposite corner of Tooley Street, when the gold-laced crier was making a proclamation 13 Totnes Times, Obituary of Charles Babbage, 28 Oct. 1791. 14 Parish Rate Books, The Southwark Room, Southwark Borough Library.

Childhood

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of my loss; but I was too much occupied with eating some pears to attend to what he was saying. The fact was, that one of the men in the linendraper’s shop, observing a little child by itself, went over to it, and asked what it wanted. Finding that it had lost its nurse, he brought it across the street, gave it some pears, and placed it on the steps at the door: having asked my name, the shopkeeper found it to be that of one of his own customers. He accordingly sent off a messenger, who announced to my mother the finding of young Pickle before she was aware of his loss...

The other event, which I believe happened some time after the one just related, is as follows. I give it from memory, as I have always repeated it. I was walking with my nurse and my brother in a public garden, called Montpelier Gardens, in Walworth. On returning through the private road leading to the gardens, I gathered and swallowed some dark berries very like black currants:- these were poisonous. On my return home, I recollect being placed between my father’s knees, and his giving me a glass of castor oil, which I took from his hand.

London Bridge was north of Crosby Row; Montpelier Gardens a few hundred yards to the south. These two stories enabled me to solve the long-standing puzzle of Babbage’s place of birth. Although he had himself stated that he was born in London the location was unknown. It was sometimes said that he was born in Teignmouth or Totnes, presumably from the family background. Indeed an exhibition celebrating his birthplace was even financed in Totnes, although a glance at the baptismal register suffices to make a Totnes birthplace exceedingly improbable. After following a number of false trails it occurred to me to enquire where Charles would have been baptized if he had been born halfway between London bridge and Montpelier gardens. The answer was at St Mary Newington. In the baptismal register, there was recorded for 6 January 1792: Charles, son to Benjamin and Betty Plumleigh Babbage. The birthday of 26 December was not in question; the year of birth was evidently 1791. The only other detail Babbage records from his childhood in Walworth was that his father had a collection of pictures. These included ‘a fine picture of our Saviour taken down from the cross. On the opposite wall was a still-celebrated “Interior of Antwerp Cathedral”.’ In October 1794 a second son, Henry, was born to the Babbages but he died in infancy. In May 1796 another son was born who was also named Henry, but he also died while a small child. In March 1798 a sister was born for Charles. She was named Mary Anne. Brother and sister remained on warm terms for life and she outlived him. In the house in Newington John Babbage, Benjamin’s elder brother, a surgeon of Totnes, died in the spring of 1792.15 By the turn of the century Benjamin was moving into formal banking 15 Gentleman's Magazine, 1792.

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Childhood

partnership with Praed. Presumably to be near Fleet Street where the new bank was to be built, the Babbages moved at the end of 1799 across the river to a small house at 10 George Street, Adelphi. This was the same house designated 10 York Buildings in the survey of London: ‘These are three-storey premises over basement with tiled roof and a brick front to the upper portion, the lower portion being stuccoed. The whole appears to date from the latter half of the eighteenth century. The staircase has close strings, turned balusters and panelled dado. The rooms have been redecorated and were in all probability panelled.’16 George Street reached the Thames near the Duke of York’s steps, now separated from the river by the embankment. The new building for Praed’s bank was designed by Sir John Soane.17 The Times for 15 July 1801 notes: ‘Monday [13 July] was laid, in Fleet-Street, the first stone of a new Banking House. At the head of the firm is William Praed Esq. Member for St Ives.’ On 5 January 1802, it reported, ‘That elegant new building just erected in Fleet Street, was last week opened as a Banking House with the firm of Praeds, Digby, Box, Babbage and Co.’ The order of names suggests that Benjamin was the junior partner. Almost certainly he had been trading in collaboration with Praed before the opening of the bank: it is hardly likely that business would have waited on completion of the building, or indeed that so splendid a building would have been erected unless it were to house an already thriving and developing business. In about 1803 Benjamin retired from his partnership and returned to Totnes. Some five years later he purchased ‘The Rowdens’, a small house with six acres of land high on the cliffs above East Teignmouth. ‘The Rowdens’ figures in Passages and was Charles’s home while he was growing to maturity. It had splendid views across Teignmouth harbour and out to sea, and it was situated on the Dawlish road. Charles’s room was partly detached from the main house by a conservatory.18 (The house was burnt down in 1841 and the present house called ‘The Rowdens’ was built on a different site in 1843.)19 In T8o8 Benjamin became churchwarden of East Teignmouth. The Mackworth Praeds, Babbage’s partners in banking, had built Bitton House in Teignmouth, gloriously sited just above the harbour.20 Teignmouth was not only a pleasant town for retirement, with a mild climate, but also a thriving little port. A guide of 1830 notes: ‘The sources of amusement are by no means few. The theatre is generally open in the season; and there is besides a succession of balls, concerts, and promenades every week. ... Teignmouth has an annual regatta, (the first established in the British channel) at which boats and yachts of different sizes 16 Survey ofLondon, xviii, part 2, 81-3 and 135. The house has been destroyed. 17 The architectural drawings are in the Sir John Soane Museum, London. 18 Passages, 15. 19 Compare Tithe map for East Teignmouth (DCRO) with ordnance survey map. 20 ‘Bitton House’. Pamphlet in Teignmouth Council Offices.

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contend for valuable prizes ... ’.21 However Benjamin maintained his connections with Totnes, and the 1812 poll sheet shows him voting for the Tory, T. P. Courtenay. Both in politics and choosing his way of life Charles was to clash with his father. In the same year that he bought ‘The Rowdens’ he also purchased a farm in Dainton,22 which is still there, now called Dainton House. The farm had about one hundred acres in 1844. Charles added to the property and kept it all his life. While the family had still been living in George Street Charles had suffered a violent fever. His parents had already lost two sons and they decided to send him to the Devon countryside to recuperate, choosing a small school at Alphington, a mile and a half on the Totnes side of Exeter. There were two schools in Alphington23 at the time and it is not clear to which one he went. Probably the education was similar in both. One was Mr Halloran’s Alphington Academy, which for twenty pounds per annum and one guinea entrance gave to sons of gentlemen ‘instruction in English, Latin and Greek languages as well as in such branches of education as are necessary qualifications for trade or the sea service’.24 The latter would include accountancy and navigation, common practice in schools near the ports. Charles was only eight or nine when he went there but that precocious and incisive mathematical mind was already being exposed to subjects which would not usually have been familiar to the products of Oxford and Cambridge. While he was at Alphington Charles made an experimental inquiry into the existence of ghosts and devils: I gathered all the information I could on the subject from the other boys, and was soon informed that there was a peculiar process by which the devil might be raised and become personally visible. I carefully collected from the traditions of different boys the visible forms in which the Prince of Darkness had been recorded to have appeared. Amongst them were— A rabbit, An owl, A black cat, very frequently, A raven, A man with a cloven foot, also frequent. After long thinking over the subject, although checked by a belief that the inquiry was wicked, my curiosity at length overbalanced my fears, and I resolved to attempt to raise the devil. Naughty people, I was told, had made written compacts with the devil, and had signed them with their names written in their own blood. These had become very rich and great men during their life, a fact which might be well known. But, after 21 The Teignmouth, Dawlish, and Torquay Guide, by several literary gentlemen, 31, Teignmouth, 1830. 22 Tithe Map of Ipplepen, DCRO. 23 BL Add. Ms. 37,199, f 284. 24 Exeter Flying Post, Thursday, 6 Jan. 1791, and 15 Jan. 1795.

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Childhood

death, they were described as having suffered and continuing to suffer physical torments throughout eternity, another fact which, to my uninstructed mind, it seemed difficult to prove. As I only desired an interview with the gentleman in black simply to convince my senses of his existence, I declined adopting the legal forms of a bond, and preferred one more resembling that of leaving a visiting card, when, if not at home, I might expect the satisfaction of a return of the visit by the devil in person. Accordingly, having selected a promising locality, I went one evening towards dusk up into a deserted garret. Having closed the door, and I believe opened the window, I proceeded to cut my finger and draw a circle on the floor with the blood which flowed from the incision. I then placed myself in the centre of the circle, and either said or read the Lord’s Prayer backwards. This I accomplished at first with some trepidation and in great fear towards the close of the scene. I then stood still in the centre of that magic and superstitious circle, looking with intense anxiety in all directions, especially at the window and at the chimney. Fortunately for myself, and for the reader also, if he is interested in this narrative, no owl or black cat or unlucky raven came into the room. In either case my then weakened frame might have expiated this foolish experiment by its own extinction, or by the alienation of that too curious spirit which controlled its feeble powers.

This is a common enough type of experience for an imaginative child, but it was pursued very systematically. The ‘too curious spirit’ remained with him for life. After worrying whether he had sinned the young Charles concluded sensibly: ‘My sense of justice (whether it be innate or acquired) led me to believe that it was impossible that an almighty and all-merciful God could punish me, a poor little boy, with eternal torments because I had anxiously taken the only means I knew of to verify the truth or falsehood of the religion I had been taught.’25 Later Babbage came to believe that scientific method pursued to its uttermost limit was entirely compatible with revealed religion and wrote his Ninth Bridgewater Treatise to prove the point. He noted with satisfaction that his own parents, while deeply religious, were without a trace of bigotry.26 Another story from Alphington shows the characteristic Babbage: One day, when uninterested in the sports of my little companions, I had retired into the shrubbery and was leaning my head, supported by my left arm, upon the lower branch of a thorn-tree. Listless and unoccupied, I imagined I had a head-ache. After a time I perceived, lying on the ground just under me, a small bright bit of metal. I instantly seized the precious discovery, and turning it over, examined both sides. I immediately concluded that I had discovered some valuable treasure, and running away to my deserted companions, showed them my golden coin. The little company became greatly excited, and declared that it must be gold, and that it was a piece of money of great value. We ran off to get the opinion of the usher; but whether he partook of the delusion, or we acquired our knowledge from the higher authority of the 25 Passages, 11—13.

26 Ibid, 8.

Childhood

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master, I know not. I only recollect the great disappointment when it was pronounced, upon the undoubted authority of the village doctor, that the square piece of brass I had found was a half-dram weight which had escaped from the box of a pair of medical scales. This little incident had an important effect upon my after-life. I reflected upon the extraordinary fact, that my head-ache had been entirely cured by the discovery of the piece of brass. Although I may not have put into words the principle, that occupation of the mind is such a source ofpleasure that it can relieve even the pain of a head-ache; yet I am sure it practically gave an additional stimulus to me in many a difficult inquiry. Some few years after, when suffering under a form of tooth-ache, not acute though tediously wearing, I often had recourse to a volume of Don Quixote, and still more frequently to one of Robinson Crusoe. Although at first it required a painful effort of attention, yet it almost always happened, after a time, that I had forgotten the moderate pain in the overpowering interest of the novel.27

The story reveals formidable powers of concentration. When Charles’s health had quite recovered he was moved to a small school with about thirty pupils in Enfield, then a village north of London. This was the only real schooling, as opposed to tutoring, that he received and from the Enfield days come his schoolboy stories. Things started badly and there were rumours of an attempt to run away:28 My first experience was unfortunate, and probably gave an unfavourable turn to my whole career during my residence of three years. After I had been at school a few weeks, I went with one of my companions into the play-ground in the dusk of the evening. We heard a noise, as of people talking in an orchard at some distance, which belonged to our master. As the orchard had recently been robbed, we thought that thieves were again at work. We accordingly climbed over the boundary wall, ran across the field, and saw in the orchard beyond a couple of fellows evidently running away. We pursued as fast as our legs could carry us, and just got up to the supposed thieves at the ditch on the opposite side of the orchard. A roar of laughter then greeted us from two of our own companions, who had entered the orchard for the purpose of getting some manure for their flowers out of a rotten mulberry-tree. These boys were aware of our mistake, and had humoured it. We now returned all together towards the play-ground, when we met our master, who immediately pronounced that we were each fined one shilling for being out of bounds. We two boys who had gone out of bounds to protect our master’s property, and who if thieves had really been there would probably have been half-killed by them, attempted to remonstrate and explain the case; but all remonstrance was vain, and we were accordingly fined. I never forgot that injustice.

Even so there is little doubt that the teaching at Enfield formed the foundation of his formal education: The school-room adjoined the house, but was not directly connected with it. It contained a library of about three hundred volumes on various subjects, generally very well selected; it also contained one or two works on subjects which do not usually attract at that period of life. I derived much advantage from this library; and I now 27 Ibid., 14-15.

28 DNB Captain Frederick Marry at.

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Childhood

mention it because I think it of great importance that a library should exist in every school-room.29

Stephen Freeman, the master, was an amateur astronomer30 and probably first developed Babbage’s serious interest in mathematics: Amongst the books was a treatise on Algebra, called ‘Ward’s Young Mathematician’s Guide.’ I was always partial to my arithmetical lessons, but this book attracted my particular attention. After I had been at this school for about a twelvemonth, I proposed to one of my school-fellows, who was of a studious habit, that we should get up every morning at three o’clock, light a fire in the schoolroom, and work until five or half-past five. We accomplished this pretty regularly for several months.

One may reasonably picture Babbage studying mathematics in the early hours: it is difficult to imagine him getting up at 3 a.m. to study classics. Inevitably word spread and others asked to join, some to work and others to play. Fearing detection Charles refused, but one of the boys, Frederick Marryat, was quite determined to be allowed to join in: Marryat slept in the same room as myself: it contained five beds. Our room opened upon a landing, and its door was exactly opposite that of the master. A flight of stairs led up to a passage just over the room in which the master and mistress slept. Passing along this passage, another flight of stairs led down, on the other side of the master’s bed-room, to another landing, from which another flight of stairs led down to the external door of the house, leading by a long passage to the school-room. Through this devious course I had cautiously threaded my way, calling up my companion in his room at the top of the last flight of stairs, almost every night for several months. One night on trying to open the door of my own bed-room, I found Marryat’s bed projecting a little before the door, so that I could not open it. I perceived that this was done purposely, in order that I might awaken him. I therefore cautiously, and by degrees, pushed his bed back without awaking him, and went as usual to my work. This occurred two or three nights successively. One night, however, I found a piece of pack-thread tied to the door lock, which I traced to Marryat’s bed, and concluded it was tied to his arm or hand. I merely untied the cord from the lock, and passed on. A few nights after I found it impossible to untie the cord, so I cut it with my pocket­ knife. The cord then became thicker and thicker for several nights, but still my pen­ knife did its work. One night I found a small chain fixed to the lock, and passing thence into Marryat’s bed. This defeated my efforts for that night, and I retired to my own bed. The next night I was provided with a pair of plyers, and unbent one of the links, leaving the two portions attached to Marryat’s arm and to the lock of the door. This occurred several times, varying by stouter chains, and by having a padlock which I could not pick in the dark. At last one morning I found a chain too strong for the tools I possessed; so I retired to my own bed, defeated. The next night, .however, I provided myself with a ball of 29 Passages, 18-19.

30 BL Add. Ms. 37,184, f 30.

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