Eaton Hodgkinson

Eaton A. Hodgkinson FRS (26 February 1789 – 18 June 1861) was an English engineer, a pioneer of the application of mathematics to problems of structural design.

Hodgkinson was born in the village of Anderton, near Northwich, Cheshire to a farming family. His father died when Hodgkinson was six years old and he was raised with his two sisters by his mother who maintained the farming business. She sent her son to Witton Grammar School in Northwich where he studied the classics with the intention that he would fulfill the family's ambition that he prepares for a career in the Church of England. Unfortunately, the regime was unsuited to his tastes and talents which were already showing promise in mathematics. His mother moved him to a less prestigious private school in Northwich where his enthusiasm for mathematics was encouraged and fostered but, as the young Hodgkinson grew physically, he became indispensable on the family farm and soon left education to devote himself there.

However, farming was no more to his taste than Greek and Latin and his mother yearned to satisfy her son's appetites. Family friends advised that Hodgkinson might find some more suitable outlet in nearby Manchester and so, in 1811, the family left for Salford to open a pawnbroking business. Hodgkinson used all his spare time in reading science and mathematics and soon introduced himself into Manchester's scientific community, meeting, among others, his future collaborator, Sir William Fairbairn. He became a pupil of John Dalton, studying mathematics, and the two remained firm friends until Dalton's death in 1844. He retired early from the family business to devote a modest pension to his scientific work.

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