41 



SECTION III. 



1831 TO 1836. 



AT the time when he left the College, Mr. De Morgan 1831. 

 was living with his family in Guilford Street, but re- 

 moved in the autumn of 1831 to 5 Upper Gower Street, 

 where he lived till our marriage in 1837. His only sister 

 had been married the year before to Mr. Lewis Hensley, 

 a surgeon of ability and good practice. My own family 

 left Stoke Newington and settled at 31 Upper Bedford 

 Place, Russell Square, in 1830. 



In May 1828, shortly after his first coming to London, 

 Mr. De Morgan had been elected a Fellow of the Astro- 

 nomical Society, and in February 1830 took his place on 

 the Council. Of the state of Science iust before that State of 



" [Science. 



period, Sir John Herschel said : ( The end of the eighteenth 

 and the beginning of the nineteenth century were re- 

 markable for the small amount of scientific movement 

 going on in this country, especially in its more exact 

 departments. . . . Mathematics were at the last gasp, 

 and Astronomy nearly so I mean in those members of 

 its frame which depend upon precise measurement and 

 systematic calculation. The chilling torpor of routine 

 had begun to spread itself over all those branches of 

 Science which wanted the excitement of experimental 

 research.' 



In 1820 the Astronomical Society was founded by 

 Mr. Baily in conjunction with Dr. Pearson, and from the 

 time of its formation the joint efforts of many earnest 

 intellectual men were given to raise the higher sciences 



