Eaton A Hodgkinson FRS was an English engineer, a pioneer of the application of mathematics to problems of structural design.
13 Facts About Eaton Hodgkinson
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Eaton Hodgkinson's father died when he was six years old, and he was raised with his two sisters by his mother, who maintained the farming business.
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Eaton Hodgkinson's mother moved him to a less prestigious private school in Northwich where his enthusiasm for mathematics was encouraged and fostered but, as the young Hodgkinson grew physically, he became indispensable on the family farm and soon left education to devote himself there.
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Family friends advised that Eaton Hodgkinson might find some more suitable outlet in nearby Manchester and so, in 1811, the family left for Salford to open a pawnbroking business.
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Eaton Hodgkinson used all his spare time in reading science and mathematics and soon introduced himself into Manchester's scientific community, meeting, among others, his future collaborator, Sir William Fairbairn.
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Eaton Hodgkinson became a pupil of John Dalton, studying mathematics, and the two remained firm friends until Dalton's death in 1844.
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Eaton Hodgkinson retired early from the family business to devote a modest pension to his scientific work.
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Eaton Hodgkinson married twice, to Catherine Johns and to a Miss Holditch.
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Eaton Hodgkinson measured the strength of columns of materials including cast iron and marble in a series of experiments.
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Eaton Hodgkinson's improved cross section was published by the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in 1830 and influenced much nineteenth century structural engineering.
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Eaton Hodgkinson derived the empirical formula for a concentrated load, W, at which a beam will fail as a function of its length between simple supports, L ; its depth, d ; and its bottom-flange area, A :.
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Eaton Hodgkinson was right, and chains were never used, but the towers remain with their empty recesses.
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Eaton Hodgkinson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1841 and, in 1847, he became professor of the mechanical principles of engineering at University College London.