S63 



ARNOLD, SAMUEL. 



ARNOLD, THOMAS, D.D. 



354 



several years at the Hague. Arnold returned to England, and obtained 

 a scanty living as an itinerant mechanic, by repairing watches, clocks, 

 guns, etc. Being at St. Albans, he was recommended to a gentleman 

 from London to put his repeater in repair. This gentleman, seeing his 

 superior talent, induced him to remove to London, where he established 

 him in business in Devereux-court, near the Temple, and introduced 

 him to the notice of George III., who presented him with a sum of 

 100/. to enable him to commence experiments for the improvement 

 of chronometers. He was subsequently assisted by several sums 

 from the Board of Longitude for the same purpose ; and he made 

 many chronometers for the East India Company, who then used in 

 their ships a far greater number than were required for government 

 vessels. 



The improvements introduced by Arnold are too numerous and of 

 too technical a character to be fully described here ; but those which 

 attracted most notice were the detached escapement, which allows 

 the vibrations of the balance, which is the real measurer of time, to 

 be more free and equal than an ordinary timepiece, by completely 

 detaching it, during the greater part of each vibration, from the train 

 of wheels ; and the expansion-balance, which, being formed of two 

 metals of unequal expansibility, varies in form in such a manner with 

 changes of temperature as to vibrate in nearly equal periods of time 

 at any degree of heat or cold to which a chronometer can be exposed. 

 Subsequent discoveries have proved that the principle of the expan- 

 sion-balance, as used by Arnold, is radically defective when the 

 instrument is liable to considerable changes of temperature ; yet it 

 was a great improvement upon the principle introduced by Harrison, 

 which consisted in applying a compensation for changes of tempera- 

 ture to the balance-spring, on the same plan as the regulator of a 

 common watch, excepting that the compensation apparatus was self- 

 acting, instead of having to be altered by hand. Since the time of 

 Arnold the compensation-balance has been used almost universally, 

 and with scarcely any alteration from the form in which he left it 

 The French chronometer-maker Le Roy, appears to have invented 

 previously, but unknown to Arnold, both the escapement-balance, and 

 an inferior form of the compensation-balance. Two experimental 

 watches made by Arnold, and now in the possession of the Royal 

 Society, appear to contain his first attempts at the detached escape- 

 ment. 



Another very important improvement introduced by Arnold, and 

 adopted by all his successors, was what is commonly called the cylin- 

 drical balance-spring, which is more perfect in its action than the 

 ordinary spiral balance-spring. He appears also to have been the 

 first to make balance-springs of gold, for the sake of avoiding corro- 

 sion; and be applied silver and platinum to the formation of balances, 

 in order to avoid the evils which had been discovered to arise, during 

 a thunder-storm, from the magnetism of steel. In addition to his 

 mechanical improvements, Arnold may be considered the first manu- 

 facturer of chronometers in England, or the first who, by systematising 

 the business of chronometer-making, reduced the price of those 

 important machines to such an amount as to render them generally 

 available. 



In 1780 Arnold published, by permission of the Board of Longitude, 

 ' An Account kept during Thirteen Months in the Royal Observatory 

 at Greenwich, of the going of a Pocket Chronometer ' made by him, 

 with bis newly-invented balance-spring, and his expansion-balance, in 

 which he observes that the greatest difference from mean time shown 

 by his chronometer in any one day had never amounted to four seconds 

 of tiuie, or one mile of longitude, which, he observed, enabled it to 

 determine the longitude to as great precision as the latitude was 

 generally determined ; and during the thirteen months there were but 

 three days on which the difference amounted to three seconds a day. 

 The whole accumulated error of the thirteen months was not greater 

 than the difference to which two observations of the moon on the 

 same day were liable. He had then, he states, applied himself for 

 nearly thirteen years to the improvement of the chronometer, and he 

 continued to do so until his death, on the 25th of August, 1799. 

 Though a highly ingenious man, he was not a very expert or delicate 

 workman, and the models made by his own hand are comparatively 

 clumsy ; but Earnshaw, who was one of his assistants, and who sub- 

 sequently obtained notice as a labourer in the same department of 

 ingenuity, was well able to make up for this deficiency of mechanical 

 dexterity. 



Shortly after the death of Arnold, Earnshaw laid claims before the 

 Board of Longitude, which Arnold's son, the late John Roger Arnold, 

 who died on the 26th of February, 1843, thought fit to contest, in the 

 name of his father. The decision of the board in 1805 gave an equal 

 reward (3000/.) to both. In the following year the board published, 

 in a thin 4to volume, illustrated with plates, ' Explanations of Time- 

 Keepers constructed by Mr. Thomas Earnshaw and the late John 

 Aruold.' 



(Abridged from the Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the 

 Diffusion of Uieful Knowledge.) 



ARNOLD, SAMUEL, Doctor in Music, was born in 1740, and 

 patronised from his birth by the princess Amelia, daughter of 

 George II , who placed him among the choristers of the royal chapel, 

 under Mr. Bernard Gates : he afterwards completed his musical studies 

 under Dr. Nareg. His first production was an air, ' If 'tis joy to Wound 



Bioo. DIV. VOL. I. 



a Lover,' which immediately spread itself far and wide, and made the 

 author popular. At the age of twenty-three he became composer to 

 Covent Garden theatre, and in 1766 also undertook to fill the same 

 office at the Haymarket, then the property of the senior Colman. Ill 

 the discharge of these duties he produced about forty musical pieces, 

 the most popular of which were ' The Maid of the Mill ;' ' The Son- 

 in-Law;' 'The Castle of Andalusia,' hi which are 'Flow, thou regal 

 purple stream,' and ' The Hardy Sailor;' ' Inkle and Yarico,' &e. Of 

 music of the graver cast, he composed Dr. Browne's sacred ode, ' The 

 Cure of Saul,' which was allowed to be the best work of the kind since 

 the time of Handel. This was followed by the oratorios of ' Abime- 

 lech,' ' The Resurrection,' and ' The Prodigal Son," which were per- 

 formed at the Covent Garden and Haymarket theatres for several years 

 during Lent. The latter was chosen for performance at the installation 

 of Lord North as Chancellor of the University of Oxford, when the 

 composer was honoured with the degree of Doctor in Music. In 1769 

 he purchased Marylebone Gardens, then a place of very fashionable 

 resort, for which he wrote many songs, &c. ; but he had to abandon 

 this speculation with the loss of 10,000i. In 1783 he was appointed 

 organist and composer to the king. In 1789 he succeeded Dr. Cooke 

 as conductor of the Academy of Ancient Music, and in 1793 became 

 organist of Westminster Abbey. In 1786 Dr. Aruold commenced 

 publishing an edition in score of Handel's works, encouraged by 

 George III., who liberally supported him in his arduous undertaking, 

 which proceeded to the extent of about forty volumes. He also 

 printed, in four large volumes, a collection of sacred music, as a con- 

 tinuation of Dr. Boyce's admirable work, to which it has proved a most 

 valuable addition. During many years he carried on the oratorios at 

 Drury-lane theatre, and while these were in his hands he produced 

 ' The Redemption,' a compilation from Handel's works ; and ' The 

 Triumph of Truth,' selected from various composers. Dr. Arnold 

 died in 1802, and was interred in Westminster Abbey, with more than 

 usual marks of respect. A simple tablet, near Purcell's monument, 

 marks the place where lie his remains. 



ARNOLD, THOMAS, D.D. The events in the life of this able man 

 and distinguished schoolmaster are comparatively few. Thomas Arnold 

 was born at Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, June 13, 1795. His father, 

 William Arnold, was collector of the customs in that place, where the 

 family, originally from Lowestoft in Suffolk, had resided for two gene- 

 rations. His education when a child was under the direction of his 

 aunt. At the age of eight he was sent to Warminster, and four years 

 afterwards to Winchester College. As a boy he was remarkably shy 

 aud indolent, a character which presented a strong contrast to the 

 frankness and activity of his subsequent life. At school his favourite 

 pursuits were history and poetry. Having written a play, and a loug 

 poem after the manner of Scott, he was called Poet Arnold, to dis- 

 tinguish him from another boy of the same name. In 1811, in his 

 sixteenth year, he was removed to Oxford, having obtained a scholar- 

 ship in Corpus Christi College. Here, stimulated by the love of the 

 real, which was one of the prominent features of his character, he 

 devoted his attention chiefly to the philosophers and historians of 

 antiquity, among whom his favourite authors were Aristotle and 

 Thucydides. He is represented by those who knew him to have been 

 at this time fond of discussion and vehement in argument ; fearless in 

 advancing his opinions, and stiff in maintaining them ; extremely 

 liberal in his views, which he held with a firm conviction of their truth, 

 but which often startled the Church and State Tories by whom he was 

 surrounded. With this intellectual boldness and independence he 

 combined no arrogance or conceit, but a disposition so generous aud 

 affectionate, that those who differed most widely from him in opinion 

 never failed to respect and love him, many of whom continued his 

 friends to the latest period of his life. In 1814 he took a first-class 

 degree, and the year after was elected Fellow of Oriel College. In 1815 

 and 1817 he was chancellor's prizeman for the Latin and English essays. 

 Having overcome certain scruples respecting some points in the Thirty- 

 nine Articles, with which he appears to have been harassed about the 

 time he graduated, he was ordained deacon in 1818, and priest in 1828, 

 when he undertook the chaplaincy of Rugby school. In 1820 he mar- 

 ried Mary, youngest daughter of the Rev. J. Penrose, rector of Fled- 

 borough, Notts, having in the previous year settled at Laleham, near 

 Staines, where he employed himself in the- preparation of seven or 

 eight young men for the universities. Here a great and decisive 

 change came over his character. The indolence and restlessness by 

 which his early years had been marked entirely disappeared, and he 

 acquired those settled, serious, earnest views of the nature and purpose 

 of life, which actuated him ever after. It was this " intense earnest- 

 ness " which gave him so much power over his pupils, and which 

 roused every oue who came withiu the sphere of his influence to the 

 consciousness that they had powers to cultivate, duties to discharge, 

 and a mission to accomplish. The time which was not occupied with 

 bis pupils was devoted to collecting materials for his edition of 

 ' Thucydides,' writing articles ou Roman history for the ' Encyclo- 

 paedia Metropolitana,' and preparing the way for his ' History of Rome,' 

 which he did not live to finish. 



In August 1828 he entered upon his duties as head master of Rugby 

 School, to which he had recently been elected. Here his great talents 

 for instruction and the management of young men acquired a suitable 

 sphere for their activity. The result was soon apparent, not only in 



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