Jonas Moore

Sir Jonas Moore (1617-1679) was a mathematician, surveyor, Ordnance Officer and patron of astronomy. He participated in two of the most ambitious English civil engineering projects of the 17th century: the Great Level of the Fens and the building of the Mole at Tangier. In later life, his wealth and influence as Surveyor General of the Ordnance enabled him to become a patron and principal driving force behind the establishment of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.

Origins and early career

Jonas Moore was born at Higher Whitelee in Pendle, Lancashire on 8th February 1617, a son of a yeoman farmer. [ Laycock, J.A. (1901) Sir Jonas Moore, Knight of Pendle Forest. Transactions of the Burnley Literary and Scientific Club, 18-22 ] There is no record of his education but it is likely that he attended Burnley Grammar School, which was only three miles from his home. In 1637, he was appointed Clerk to Thomas Burwell, vicar-general of the diocese of Durham, a job requiring competence in the use of legal Latin, so he evidentially had a good school education. [Willmoth, Frances (1993) Sir Jonas Moore Practical Mathematics and Restoration Science, The Boydell Press, 28-29 ] He married Eleanor Wren on 8 April 1638 in Durham [Willmoth, Frances (1993) Sir Jonas Moore Practical Mathematics and Restoration Science, The Boydell Press, 30 ] and subsequently raised a family of a son and two daughters. Any hopes that Moore may have had for a comfortable legal career in Durham were dashed by the events leading to the English Civil War and, after Parliament sequestered church revenues in October 1642, Moore with no income had to return to Lancashire.

Mathematician and Surveyor

Records of Moore's life during the next ten years are sketchy but by 1650 he was an established mathematics teacher and published his first book, "Moores Arithmetick". He went on that year to be appointed Surveyor to the fifth Earl of Bedford's Fen drainage Company and worked on draining the Fens for the next seven years. In 1658, Moore was able to produce a 16 sheet "Mapp of the Great Levell of the Fens" , which provided a very effective means of displaying the Company's achievements in altering the Fenland landscape of East Anglia. The scale of the map (around two inches to the mile) was not to be bettered until the late nineteenth century. [ Willmoth, Frances (1993) Sir Jonas Moore Practical Mathematics and Restoration Science, The Boydell Press, 88-120 ]

In the early 1660s, Moore worked mainly as a surveyor, mapping the River Thames from "Westminster to the sea" in 1662, his first commission from a government body. [ Willmoth, Frances (1993) Sir Jonas Moore Practical Mathematics and Restoration Science, The Boydell Press, 128 ] From 1663, the Duke of York (subsequently King James II) became Moore's chief patron. In June, Moore visited Tangier as part of a team to design a stone pier. On his return, he prepared a map with the title "A Mapp of the Citty of Tanger , with Straits of Gibraltar. Described by Jonas Moore Surveyor to his Royall Highness the Duke of York". When it was completed in March 1664, Samuel Pepys, an active member of the Tangiers Committee, was impressed with the map "which is very pleasant, and I purpose to have it finely set out and hung up". [ Willmoth, Frances (1993) Sir Jonas Moore Practical Mathematics and Restoration Science, The Boydell Press, 134 ] [ Pepys Diary, 26 March 1664 ]

Ordnance Officer

Given the patronage of the King's brother, it was inevitable that Moore as an able and dependable surveyor, would eventually find a home as a member of the Ordnance Office. He was appointed Assistant Surveyor of the Ordnance on 19 June 1665 as full deputy to Francis Nicholls, who had been Surveyor since 1660. [ Willmoth, Frances (1993) Sir Jonas Moore Practical Mathematics and Restoration Science, The Boydell Press, 139 ] Moore became Surveyor General after the death of Nicholls on 28 July 1669. [ Willmoth, Frances (1993) Sir Jonas Moore Practical Mathematics and Restoration Science, The Boydell Press, 139 ]

The Surveyor's duties were not confined to land-surveying, rather the main duty was to ensure availability of adequate stores, particularly guns and ammunition. During the Third Dutch War, Moore met Prince Rupert at the Nore with sixteen vessels loaded with powder and shot. [ Willmoth, Frances (1993) Sir Jonas Moore Practical Mathematics and Restoration Science, The Boydell Press, 151 ] He received his knighthood on 28 January 1673, probably as a reward for his duties during the first year of the Third Dutch War. With the end of the war in 1674, Moore was able to pursue his interest in astronomy and attempted to gain support from the Royal Society for an observatory at Chelsea College. [Birch, Thomas A History of the Royal Society, vol. 3 p. 139 ] Moore was elected to the Royal Society on 3 December 1674 but the proposal for an observatory at Chelsea came to nothing. He continued as an active member and in May 1676 he was appointed a Vice -President of the Royal Society. [Hunter, The Royal Society, p 79 ]

When Charles II appointed John Flamsteed his "astronomical observator" on 4 March 1675, Flamsteed had already enjoyed Moore's patronage since 1670 when Moore presented him with a Towneley micrometer. [Forbes, Eric et al. editors (1995) The correspondence of John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal volume 1, Institute of Physics Publishing, p. 114] The Ordnance Office was responsible for the building of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, which was completed in June 1676. Moore provided much of the Observatory's foundation equipment including the two "Great Clocks" by Tompion, out of his own pocket. [ Howse, Derek (1997) Greenwich Time and Longitude, Philip Wilson Publishers, p. 45-49]

Death and afterwards

Towards the end of his life, Moore took a great interest in The Royal Mathematics School at Christ's Hospital in London and he was made a governor in December 1676. [ Willmoth, Frances (1993) Sir Jonas Moore Practical Mathematics and Restoration Science, The Boydell Press, 196 ] In 1677, Moore began to write a book, to be called "A New Systeme of the Mathematicks", with the purpose of defining a mathematical course suitable for the school. It was still unfinished when Moore died on 27 August 1679. He was succeeded as Surveyor General of the Ordnance by his only son, also called Jonas. He was knighted on 9 August 1680 but died less than years after his father, as a result of falling off a horse (12 July 1682). [ Willmoth, Frances (1993) Sir Jonas Moore Practical Mathematics and Restoration Science, The Boydell Press, 154-156 ] It was the husbands of Moore's two daughters rather than the son who undertook the publication of the "New Systeme", which with the final parts being written by John Flamsteed and Edmund Halley, was completed in 1681.

His contemporaries

The above brief account of the main milestones in the life of Sir Jonas Moore gives little insight into the man himself. John Aubrey's biography of him, written a year or two after his death, characterized him as "a good mathematician and a good fellowe", that is a man given to drink every day wine with company. Among such company would be Samuel Pepys, who recorded one such session in the Renish wine house on 23 May 1661 "...and there came Jonas Moore, the mathematician, to us, and there he did by discourse make us fully believe that England and France were once the same continent, by very good arguments, and spoke very many things, not so much to prove the Scripture false as that the time therein is not well computed nor understood." Only a casual acquaintance in the 1660s, Pepys counted him "my Worthy Friend" when both were governors of the Mathematics School. [ Willmoth, Frances (1993) Sir Jonas Moore Practical Mathematics and Restoration Science, The Boydell Press, 201 ]

Two of Moore's friends, Sir Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke, were also associated with the Royal Observatory. Moore and Hooke were among a small group that met at Wren's house as the "New Philosophicall Club" in 1676, at a time when the public's opinion of philosophers and the Royal Society was at a low ebb. [ Tinniswood, Adrian (2001) His Invention So Fertile a life of Christopher Wren, Jonathan Cape, p 229 ] Moore may well have had sympathy with the public as he always looked for tangible results from Flamsteed's work at Greenwich. In July 1678, Moore threatened to stop Flamsteed's salary and compared his lack of published results unfavourably with the recent work by Edmund Halley. [ Forbes, Eric et al. editors (1995) The correspondence of John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal volume 1, Institute of Physics Publishing, p. 642-646 ]

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