Hunt, Robert

The following data is extracted from Hunt Family Records.

ROBERT (1807-1887); scientific writer: b. Plymouth Dock (now Davenport) ; posthumous son of a. naval officer who had perished with all the crew of a sloop of war in the Grecian Archipelago; attended schools at Plymouth and Penzance; acquired some knowledge of practical chemistry with a smattering of Latin, and studied anatomy under Joshua Brooks; had charge of a medical dispensary in London; was employed in London by a firm of chemical manufacturers, and on the discovery of photography he began a series of careful experiments and soon after published in the "Philosophical Transactions" several papers on his results; appointed secretary of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, 1840; distinguished himself by experimenting on electrical phenomena in mineral veins and by some papers on application of the steam engine in pumping mines; received government appointment as keeper of the mining records, 1845; appointed lecturer on mechanical science in the Royal School of Mines, 1851; succeeded to chair of experimental physics at the School of Mines, after lecturing two years; president of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, 1859; member of the royal commission appointed in 1866 to inquire into the quantity of coal consumed in manufactories.

Source: Hunt Family Records

  Go Back