23 Facts About Richard Towneley

Richard Towneley was an English mathematician, natural philosopher and astronomer, resident at Towneley Hall, near Burnley in Lancashire.

Richard Towneley's uncle was the antiquarian and mathematician Christopher Towneley.

Richard Towneley introduced John Flamsteed to the micrometer and invented the deadbeat escapement, which became the standard escapement used in precision pendulum clocks and is the main escapement used in pendulum clocks today.

In 1653, Richard Towneley married Mary Paston, a fellow Catholic from an influential Norfolk family, best known for the Paston Letters, a key primary historical source for the period 1460 to 1510.

Richard Towneley is thought to have attended college in the Low Countries, almost certainly the French University of Douai, where his brothers were educated.

Richard Towneley wrote to point out that Auzout was not the first person to have developed such a device as the English astronomer William Gascoigne had developed one before the Civil War.

Richard Towneley had produced an improved version of that micrometer and was using it in Lancashire.

Richard Towneley's problem was solved in 1667, when he saw Richard Towneley's micrometer, which was based on a prototype of 1640 invented by William Gascoigne.

Only one complete piece of work by Richard Towneley survives, titled "Short Considerations uppon Mr Hookes Attempt for the Explication of Waters Ascent into small Glasse Canes with praeliminarie Discourse", and dated Ap.

The Flamsteed correspondence explains how Richard Towneley and Flamsteed began a correspondence that provides a unique insight into the early years of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.

Richard's uncle Christopher Towneley had befriended a number of the northern astronomers, including Jeremiah Horrocks, William Crabtree, William Gascoigne and John Stephenson, and collected their papers.

Once at Greenwich, Flamsteed asked Richard Towneley to help him prove that the Earth rotated at a constant speed.

Richard Towneley designed a novel clock escapement for this purpose and two astronomical clocks were commissioned to his design from the clockmaker Thomas Tompion and installed at the Greenwich Observatory.

Richard Towneley had recognised that the second hand of pendulum clocks, using an anchor escapement, jerked backward due to recoil, causing inaccuracy.

Richard Towneley's design eliminated the recoil and was the first of a kind that came to be known as a deadbeat escapement.

Richard Towneley wrote that at Towneley in Lancashire there was twice the quantity of rain that fell in Paris.

Richard Towneley further claimed that the eastern parts of Lancashire were subject to more rain than Yorkshire due to clouds driven by south-west winds falling as rain on the high ground that divides the two counties.

Richard Towneley called for more measurements elsewhere to test the claim that his area had more rain than in other parts of the country.

Rather there is evidence that Richard Towneley had already expressed interest in measuring rainfall across different parts of England before 1677.

Richard Towneley had a close friendship with the Belgian mathematician, Francois Walther de Sluze.

Richard Towneley designed and built a carriage that passed smoothly over rough roads.

When James II became king in 1685, the Catholics were again allowed to take part in public life, and Richard Towneley became a Justice of the Peace.

Periods of anti-Catholic agitation before and after the 1688 Glorious Revolution, saw Richard Towneley fined, culminating in accusations of involvement in the 1694 Lancashire Plot, an alleged attempt to restore the exiled James II.