KATER KENDAL. 



567 



of all who were able to appreciate him ; and the 

 young, to whom he was remarkably kind, enter- 

 tained a most filial veneration for him. Sur- 

 rounded by the marks of esteem and friendship, 

 entirely devoted to the study of the sciences, and 

 never extending his ambition beyond this circle ; 

 happy in the bosom of a numerous family, and 

 seeing himself survive, so to speak, in a son worthy 

 to bear his name, and who had become even dur- 



ing his lifetime his colleague and successor, he 

 passed his long career in the enjoyment of a happi- 

 ness which he owed as much to himself as to the 

 circumstances in which he happened to be placed ; 

 and at last, in the eighty-eighth year of his age, 

 on the 15th September 1836, a short and not very 

 painful disorder brought to an easy termination a 

 life which had been spent in so much usefulness 

 and tranquillity. 



K 



KATER, CAPTAIN HENRY, F.R.S ; an eminent 

 mathematician, was born at Bristol, April 16, 

 1777. His father was of a German family; his 

 mother the daughter of an eminent architect : both 

 were distinguished for their scientific attainments, 

 and united in inspiring him, from his earliest years, 

 with a taste for physical investigations. After 

 some time his father, who designed Henry for the 

 profession of the law, began to discourage his ex- 

 clusive devotion to abstract science, and he parted 

 from mathematics as reluctantly as Blackstone 

 from his poetry. During the two years that Mr 

 Kater was in a pleader's office, he acquired a con- 

 siderable portion of legal knowledge, on which he 

 valued himself through life ; but the death of his 

 father, in 1794, permitting him to resume his fa- j 

 vourite studies, he bade adieu to the law, and ob- 

 tained a commission in the 12th regiment of Foot, 

 then stationed in India. During the following 

 year he was engaged in the trigonometrical survey 

 of India, under colonel Lambton, and contributed , 

 greatly to the success of that stupendous under- , 

 taking. About the same time he constructed a ' 

 peculiarly sensible hygrometer, and published a 

 description of it in the " Asiatic Researches." His 

 unremitted study during seven years in a hot cli- j 

 mate greatly injured his constitution, arid was the | 

 cause of the ill state of health under which he j 

 suffered to the close of his life. After his return I 

 to England, he qualified himself to serve on the 

 general staff. He went on half-pay in 1814, from 

 which period his life was wholly devoted to 

 science. His trigonometrical operations, his ex- 

 periments for determining the length of a pendulum 

 beating seconds, and his labours for constructing 

 standards of weights and measures, are well 

 known ; they combine patient industry, minute 

 observation, and mechanical skill, with high 

 powers of reasoning. Most of the learned societies 

 in Great Britain and on the continent testified 

 their sense of the value of capt. Kater's services, 

 by enrolling him amongst their members. The 

 emperor of Russia employed him to construct 

 standards for the weights and measures of his do- 

 minions ; and was so pleased with the execution of 

 them, that he presented him with the order of St 

 Anne, and a diamond snuff-box. The even tenor 

 of capt. Kater's life was rarely interrupted. The 

 loss of his daughter, who fell a victim to her ardour 

 for science in 1827, was the severest affliction by 

 which he was visited. She died in her seventeenth 



year, after having displayed mathematical powers 

 of a high order, and a love of science that even in- 

 creasing physical weakness could not destroy. 

 Most of capt. Kater's publications appeared in the 

 " Philosophical Transactions," to which he was a 

 very constant contributor. He died at his house, 

 York Gate, Regent Park, London, April 26, 1835. 

 KENDAL, OR KIRBY KENDAL (the Church in 

 the vale of Ken), is the largest town in Westmore- 

 land. It is pleasantly situated on the banks of 

 the Ken, or Kent, which flows rapidly through the 

 fertile valleys of a tract of country, that after the 

 conquest was designated the barony of Kendal, and 

 was the reward of Ivo, or John, brother to the 

 earl of Anjou. His lineal descendant, William 

 Steward, of the household of Henry II., assumed 

 the name of Lancaster, perhaps, from the circum- 

 stance of being governor of Lancaster castle. 

 From this family the barony descended, through 

 the noble houses of Bruce and Ross, to the Parrs. 

 Sir William Parr, of Kendal, having faithfully 

 served king Edward IV., in his wars with France 

 and Scotland, was created a knight of the garter. 

 Catharine Parr, his grand-daughter, was born here, 

 and became the last queen of Henry VIII. ; her 

 brother, Sir William Parr, was by that monarch 

 created first lord Parr of Kendal, and afterwards 

 earl of Essex and K.^J. By Edward IV., he was 

 raised to the dignity of marquis of Northampton. 

 The castle, the baronial seat of the above distin- 

 guished families, occupies a grassy hill, on the east 

 side of the river; of this structure, four broken 

 towers, and part of the outer walls, only are now 

 remaining. Opposite the castle, and overlooking 

 the town, is Castle-law Hill, an artificial circular 

 mount, about thirty feet high, surrounded at its 

 base by a deep fosse and a high rampart strength- 

 ened by two bastions on the east ; the summit, 

 which is flat, is crossed by a ditch, and defended 

 by a breast-work of earth. This mount is of 

 greater antiquity than the castle, and as its name 

 imports, was one of the spots on which, in ancient 

 times, justice was dispensed to the people. On 

 this eminence, an obelisk, commemorative of the 

 Revolution of 1688, was erected by the inhabi- 

 tants of Kendal, in 1788. The church is a spa- 

 cious gotbic structure, with a square tower, con- 

 taining ten bells; it has three chapels, memorials 

 of the ancient dignity of three neighbouring fami- 

 lies, the Bellinghams, Stricklands, and Pans, and 

 contains many ancient monuments. 



