Isaac Milner
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The Reverend Isaac Milner FRS |
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Isaac Milner (1750–1820)
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| Born |
11 January 1750 Mabgate, Leeds, England |
| Died | 1 April 1820 (aged 70) Cambridge, England |
| Residence | United Kingdom |
| Nationality | English |
| Fields | Mathematician and chemist |
| Institutions | University of Cambridge |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge |
| Known for | Chemical production of nitrous acid |
| Notes | |
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He is the brother of Joseph Milner
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Isaac Milner FRS (11 January 1750 – 1 April 1820) was a mathematician, an inventor, the President of Queens' College, Cambridge and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics.
He was instrumental in the 1785 religious conversion of William Wilberforce and helped him through many trials and was a great supporter of the abolitionists' campaign against the slave trade, steeling Wilberforce with his assurance before the 1789 Parliamentary debate:
If you carry this point in your whole life, that life will be better spent than in being prime minister of many years.
He was also a natural philosopher and the Dean of Carlisle.
Milner was born on 11 January 1750 in Mabgate, Leeds. He began his education at a grammar school in Leeds in 1756, but this ended in 1760 with the death of his father. He was apprenticed as a weaver, reading the classics when time permitted, until his elder brother, Joseph Milner, provided him with an opportunity. Joseph was offered the mastership at Hull's grammar school and invited Isaac to become the institution's usher.
Through the patronage of his brother, Milner was subsequently freed from his duties in Hull and entered Queens' College, Cambridge, as a sizar in 1770. He graduated BA as senior wrangler in 1774, winning the Smith's first prize.
Shortly after he took his bachelor's degree in 1774 he was ordained as deacon; in 1776 Queens' offered him a fellowship; in the following year he became a priest and college tutor; and in 1778 he was presented with the rectory of St Botolph's Church, Cambridge. However he was a northerner at heart and thus was sent to reform the management of the Deanery of Carlisle. Taking a scientific to the Church of England's most northerly parishes he achieved success for the chapter and diocese. But Milner remained ambitious and seeking promotion he desired a return to Cambridge.
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