M & D Read

[Becky Lindroos]

There was some upward mobility for a few - it wasn’t entirely absent.  if you knew folks, perhaps in the community,  who could help a very bright and hard-working lad, they might get you an education and an entry position.  

Charles Mason was born at Wherr (now Weir) Farm, Oakridge Lynch, Gloucestershire, England, the son of Charles Mason, a baker and miller, and Anne Damsel Mason.  He attended Tetbury Grammar School and received additional tutoring from mathematician Robert Stratford.   He lived near the astronomer royal, Dr. James Bradley, and Reverend Nathaniel Bliss, Savilian Professor at Oxford.  It was through these local connections that Mason's prowess as a mathematician came to the attention of Bradley, who in 1756 offered him the position of assistant (or "labourer") at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, with a salary of £26. At about this time Mason married Rebekah (maiden name unknown), with whom he had two sons. 

At the observatory Mason compiled tables of lunar distances for deriving longitude, based on the work of Tobias Mayer. A congenial person and a meticulous observer of nature and geography, Mason was elected a corresponding member of the American Philosophical Society in 1767.

Dixon was born at Bishop Auckland, County Durham, the son of George Dixon, a Quaker colliery owner of Cockfield, and Mary Hunter Dixon. He and his elder brother George were educated at a school in Barnard Castle run by John Kipling. Dixon became friends with Hurworth mathematician William Emerson and the famous London instrument maker John Bird of Bishop Auckland. Of his early career as a land surveyor little is known. He may have learned the profession from his brother George. In 1760 he was expelled from the Quaker meeting house for excessive drinking. As a Quaker, albeit ethically weak but physically strong, slavery offended Dixon. The proposal for electing Jeremiah Dixon a corresponding member of the American Philosophical Society went forward with Mason's but for unknown reasons he was not elected until 1768. 
http://www.anb.org/articles/13/13-02640.html

Becky



> On Feb 12, 2015, at 2:53 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> p. 73. "How did a baker's son get to be Assistant to the Astronomer Royal? Etc.
> 
> Upward mobility, a generally new thing for the times.
> 
> That paragraph ending with "Or are we being used, by Forces invisible
> even to thy Invisible College?"
> 
> ???
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l

-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l