XXXV 



His mathematical tutors there were Dr. Temple, the present Bishop 

 of London, and afterwards the Rev. Bartholomew Price, who had the 

 highest opinion of his industry and power of work. His range of 

 reading is said to have been very extensive. Tn 1845 he took his 

 B.A. degree as a first-class in mathematics, and in 1846-7 gained 

 successively the Senior University and the Johnson's Mathematical 

 Scholarships. 



In 1846 Mr. Spottiswoode left Oxford to take his father's place as 

 Queen's printer, but he kept up his connexion with the University, 

 delivering a coarse of lectures at his college on solid geometry, and 

 acting in 1857-8 as Examiner in the Mathematical Schools. 



The business of the Queen's Printing Office continued to occupy his 

 close attention until his death. The great powers which he possessed 

 as an organiser and master of detail ensured the advancement and 

 complete commercial success of this great establishment, and rendered 

 of real efficiency his unceasing efforts to promote the physical and 

 moral welfare of his workpeople. 



Mr. Spottiswoode began to communicate to the world the results of 

 his mathematical researches in 1847, when he issued a series of five 

 pamphlets, which he entitled " Meditationes Analyticee." These con- 

 tained thirteen essays on a variety of mathematical topics, including 

 the curvature of surfaces, virtual velocities, infinitesimal analysis, 

 physical astronomy, and the calculus of variations. After a pause of 

 three years, he in 1850 sent three brief papers to the " Philosophical 

 Magazine " on quaternions, and from that time forward his commu- 

 nications to the leading English and foreign mathematical societies 

 and journals were poured out in an almost continuous stream. In a 

 list of his publications which is before the writer, four years only of 

 his subsequent life, viz., 1858, 1867, 1869, and 1878, appear with- 

 out some record of mathematical work committed to the press. Much 

 of this no doubt was of a slight and fugitive character, consisting 

 merely of new proofs by elegant methods of known theorems, or notes 

 of ideas suggested by the papers of others which the wide range of 

 his college reading enabled him to follow without difficulty, so that 

 but few were allowed to escape his attention. But of important and 

 original work there was an abundance. The interesting series of 

 communications on the contact of curves and surfaces which are con- 

 tained in the " Philosophical Transactions " of 1862 and subsequent 

 years, would alone account for the high rank he obtained as a 

 mathematician. It would not be possible to discuss in any detail the 

 various mathematical writings which have established the reputation 

 of Mr. Spottiswoode without the use of complex symbolical expres- 

 sions quite inconsistent with the objects of a brief obituary notice. 

 In truth, the mastery which he had obtained over the mathematical 

 symbols was so complete that he never shrank from the use of 



