William Frend (social reformer)
Encyclopedia
William Frend was an English clergyman (later Unitarian), social reformer and writer. After a high-profile university trial in Cambridge deprived of his residency rights as fellow of his college, he became a leading figure in London radical circles.
trader, he was born on 22 November 1757 at Canterbury, the second son of George Frend, a tradesmen, alderman
, and twice its mayor. His mother was buried in the cloister yard, Canterbury, on 7 February 1763, and his father married at the cathedral, on 25 September 1764, Jane Kirby. Frend was educated at The King's School, Canterbury
until 1771; among his companions were his cousin Herbert Marsh
, and Charles Abbott
. His father intended him for business, and he was sent to St Omer to learn the French language, and then to a mercantile house in Quebec
, where he remained for a few weeks. During his time there he served as a volunteer at the beginning of the troubles with the American colonies.
, on 18 December 1775, where William Paley
was one of the college tutors. After gaining various college prizes he took the degree of B.A. in 1780, being second wrangler and Smith's prizeman. Having gained the notice of Lynford Caryl, he migrated to Jesus College
where Caryl was Master, becoming a Fellow and tutor there in 1781.
At the end of 1780 he was admitted deacon in the church of England, and advanced to the priesthood in 1783, when he was presented to the living of Madingley
, near Cambridge, where he officiated zealously until June 1787. During this period of his life the post of tutor to the Archduke Alexander of Russia was offered to him, but he declined it.
In 1787 Frend left the Church of England
, in which he had been ordained, to become a Unitarian
. He published his ‘Address to the Inhabitants of Cambridge’ in favour of his new creed, and he supported vigorously in the grace introduced into the senate house on 11 December 1787 for doing away with subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles
on taking the degree of M.A. He was removed by Dr. Beadon from the office of tutor by an order dated 27 September 1788, and his appeal was dismissed by the visitor, the Bishop of Ely
, by a decree dated 29 December 1788.
He took, in company with an old schoolfellow called Richard Tylden, a lengthy tour in France, the Low Countries, Germany, and Switzerland. When he returned home he resumed the study of Hebrew. Joseph Priestley
devised in 1789 a plan for a new translation of the scriptures, with Frend, Michael Dodson
and Theophilus Lindsey
; and through 1790 Frend was engaged on translating the historical books of the Old Testament. He also became close to the Baptist Robert Robinson, who died in 1790, and he corrected Robinson's posthumous volume of Ecclesiastical Researches.
of the church of England. On 4 March certain members of the senate met on the invitation of the vice-chancellor, Dr. Isaac Milner
, and resolved that Frend should be prosecuted in the vice-chancellor's court. They deputed a committee of five to conduct the proceedings, one of the leaders being Thomas Kipling
. On 23 April a summons was issued by that official requiring Frend's presence in the law schools on 3 May to answer the charge of having violated the laws and statutes of the university by publishing the pamphlet. After several sittings and a long defence by Frend, the vice-chancellor and heads gave their decision on 28 May that the authorship had been proved and that Frend had offended against the statute ‘de concionibus.’
Frend was ordered to retract and confess his error, and as he declined was ‘banished from the university’ (30 May). An appeal against the sentence followed, and the university counsel including the barrister Simon Le Blanc became involved; it was unanimously affirmed by the delegates on 29 June, and on 26 November 1795 the court of king's bench discharged a rule which Frend had obtained for restoring him to the franchises of a resident M.A. The master and fellows of Jesus College decided, on 3 April 1793, that in consequence of this pamphlet he should not be allowed to reside in the college until he could produce satisfactory proofs of good behaviour. He thereupon appealed to the visitor, but on 13 July the appeal was dismissed. In spite of all these proceedings he enjoyed the emoluments of his fellowship until his marriage, and remained, while he lived, a member of his college and of the senate of the university.
, then an undergraduate. Henry Gunning
, in his Reminiscences (i. 280–309), reprints an account of the trial, and, while condemning the tone of the pamphlet, describes the proceedings as a party move and vindicates the tract from the accusation of sedition. He adds that the vice-chancellor was biased against the accused, and that the undergraduates, among whom Coleridge was conspicuous, were unanimous in his favour. Augustus De Morgan
wrote that chalked graffiti "Frend for ever" appeared; bishop-to-be Herbert Marsh
was apprehended, while two other future establishment pillars, John Singleton Copley
and William Rough escaped. Milner later wrote identifying Frend and his "party" in the university as "Jacobinical", and commenting that the trial had been a turning point for them.
His trial was described by Frend himself in 'An Account of the Proceedings in the University of Cambridge against William Frend,' 1793, and in 'A Sequel to the Account,' &c., which dealt with the application to the court of king's bench in 1795. John Beverley also published accounts of the proceedings in 1793. Two letters from Richard Farmer
to Samuel Parr
on this trial are in Parr's Works (i. 447–8), and in the same set (viii. 30–2) is a long letter from Frend on the treatment which Thomas Fyshe Palmer
, another reformer, had just received.
Many years later, in 1837, Frend gave Henry Crabb Robinson
some anecdotes about his trial; and said that the promoters wished to expel him from the university, but that he had demanded a sight of the university roll, and on reference to the original document it was discovered that an informality existed which made his expulsion invalid.
met William Godwin
, on 27 February 1795. The company there that evening included George Dyer, Thomas Holcroft
, James Losh
, and John Tweddell. Frend was one of the orators in the mass meetings called by the London Corresponding Society
in late 1795, with John Ashley, Matthew Brown, Richard Hodgson, John Gale Jones, John Richter, and John Thelwall
. Also of this circle was Mary Hays
; an attachment to Frend ended in an unsatisfactory fashion, Frend claiming that marriage was not possible on financial grounds; and she wrote autobiographically about the relationship in her first novel, Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796).
Frend was one of the group of reformers who supported at this time the early activities of the Literary Fund
set up by David Williams
. There he worked alongside Thomas Christie
, Alexander Jardine, James Martin, and John Hurford Stone
. Their views, however, did not have it all their own way.
In 1806 he took part in the formation of the Rock Life Assurance Company, to which he was appointed as actuary
. He continued in radical activities, participating around 1810 in a fundraising committee, with Timothy Brown, John Cartwright
, William Cobbett
, and Robert Waithman
, to support Gwyllym Lloyd Wardle.
A severe illness in 1826 compelled him to offer his resignation, which was accepted in 1827 when an annuity was given to him. His health subsequently recovered, and he resumed an active life. Frend and Joshua Milne
, another actuary, were consulted by the statistician John Rickman
about the 1831 census. In 1840 he was attacked by paralysis. He lingered with almost total loss of speech and motion, though mentally alert. He died at his house, Tavistock Square
, London, on 21 February 1841.
, John Singleton Copley
, and Robert Malthus; he was himself the last of ‘the learned anti-Newtonians and a noted oppugner of all that distinguishes Algebra from Arithmetic.’ In Cambridge the leading intellectual dissenters formed a circle including George Dyer, Benjamin Flower
, Robert Hall and Robert Tyrwhitt
, as well as Frend and Robert Robinson.
A Unitarian and a Whig by conviction, reformers such as Francis Burdett and John Horne Tooke
were his friends, and he maintained an active correspondence with the main supporters of radicalism. Francis Place
acknowledged an intellectual debt to Frend. Frend's Unitarian network, as well as the group round Priestley, included James Gifford the elder and Robert Hibbert
. When it came to Godwin, Frend like others had difficulties with his atheism
.
He was frequently consulted by Palmer in support of his claim for a public grant for his services in improving the transmission of letters. Frend thought that the rate of postage should be reduced to a fixed charge of 2d. or 1d., and drew up a statement to that effect which reached a member of Robert Peel
's cabinet, but nothing came of it at that time.
Frend, besides contributing two articles to 'Tracts on the Resolution of Affected Algebraick Equations,' edited by Francis Maseres in 1800, and one tract to the same editor's 'Scriptores Logarithmici,' vol. vi. 1807, suggested other matters to him in the same publications. Maseres in his 'Tracts on the Resolution of Cubick and Biquadratick Equations,' published supplements to his appendix to Frend's 'Principles of Algebra.'
. They had seven children, and their eldest daughter, Sophia Elizabeth, married in the autumn of 1837 Augustus De Morgan
.
Early life
Son of a CanterburyCanterbury
Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....
trader, he was born on 22 November 1757 at Canterbury, the second son of George Frend, a tradesmen, alderman
Alderman
An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members themselves rather than by popular vote, or a council...
, and twice its mayor. His mother was buried in the cloister yard, Canterbury, on 7 February 1763, and his father married at the cathedral, on 25 September 1764, Jane Kirby. Frend was educated at The King's School, Canterbury
The King's School, Canterbury
The King's School is a British co-educational independent school for both day and boarding pupils in the historic English cathedral city of Canterbury in Kent. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference and the Eton Group....
until 1771; among his companions were his cousin Herbert Marsh
Herbert Marsh
Herbert Marsh was a bishop in the Church of England.-Life:He was educated at Faversham Grammar School, The King's School, Canterbury and St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA as second wrangler and was elected a fellow of St John's in 1779. He studied with J. D...
, and Charles Abbott
Charles Abbott, 1st Baron Tenterden
Charles Abbott, 1st Baron Tenterden PC SL , was a British barrister and judge who served as Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench between 1818 and 1832. Born in obscure circumstances to a barber and his wife in Canterbury, Abbott was educated initially at a dame school before moving to The King's...
. His father intended him for business, and he was sent to St Omer to learn the French language, and then to a mercantile house in Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, where he remained for a few weeks. During his time there he served as a volunteer at the beginning of the troubles with the American colonies.
At Cambridge
On his return home he expressed a wish to enter the church, and on the recommendation of Archbishop John Moore he entered Christ's College, CambridgeChrist's College, Cambridge
Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.With a reputation for high academic standards, Christ's College averaged top place in the Tompkins Table from 1980-2000 . In 2011, Christ's was placed sixth.-College history:...
, on 18 December 1775, where William Paley
William Paley
William Paley was a British Christian apologist, philosopher, and utilitarian. He is best known for his exposition of the teleological argument for the existence of God in his work Natural Theology, which made use of the watchmaker analogy .-Life:Paley was Born in Peterborough, England, and was...
was one of the college tutors. After gaining various college prizes he took the degree of B.A. in 1780, being second wrangler and Smith's prizeman. Having gained the notice of Lynford Caryl, he migrated to Jesus College
Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The College was founded in 1496 on the site of a Benedictine nunnery by John Alcock, then Bishop of Ely...
where Caryl was Master, becoming a Fellow and tutor there in 1781.
At the end of 1780 he was admitted deacon in the church of England, and advanced to the priesthood in 1783, when he was presented to the living of Madingley
Madingley
Madingley is a village near Coton and Dry Drayton on the western outskirts of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.Known as Madingelei in the Domesday Book, the village's name means "Woodland clearing of the family or followers of a man called Mada"....
, near Cambridge, where he officiated zealously until June 1787. During this period of his life the post of tutor to the Archduke Alexander of Russia was offered to him, but he declined it.
In 1787 Frend left the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
, in which he had been ordained, to become a Unitarian
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
. He published his ‘Address to the Inhabitants of Cambridge’ in favour of his new creed, and he supported vigorously in the grace introduced into the senate house on 11 December 1787 for doing away with subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles
Thirty-Nine Articles
The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion are the historically defining statements of doctrines of the Anglican church with respect to the controversies of the English Reformation. First established in 1563, the articles served to define the doctrine of the nascent Church of England as it related to...
on taking the degree of M.A. He was removed by Dr. Beadon from the office of tutor by an order dated 27 September 1788, and his appeal was dismissed by the visitor, the Bishop of Ely
Bishop of Ely
The Bishop of Ely is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Ely in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese roughly covers the county of Cambridgeshire , together with a section of north-west Norfolk and has its see in the City of Ely, Cambridgeshire, where the seat is located at the...
, by a decree dated 29 December 1788.
He took, in company with an old schoolfellow called Richard Tylden, a lengthy tour in France, the Low Countries, Germany, and Switzerland. When he returned home he resumed the study of Hebrew. Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley, FRS was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works...
devised in 1789 a plan for a new translation of the scriptures, with Frend, Michael Dodson
Michael Dodson
-Life:The only son of Joseph Dodson, dissenting minister at Marlborough, Wiltshire, he was born there in September 1732. He was educated at Marlborough grammar school, and then, in accordance with the advice of Sir Michael Foster, justice of the king's bench, was entered at the Middle Temple 31...
and Theophilus Lindsey
Theophilus Lindsey
Theophilus Lindsey was an English theologian and clergyman who founded the first avowedly Unitarian congregation in the country, at Essex Street Chapel.-Life:...
; and through 1790 Frend was engaged on translating the historical books of the Old Testament. He also became close to the Baptist Robert Robinson, who died in 1790, and he corrected Robinson's posthumous volume of Ecclesiastical Researches.
Trial and aftermath
In 1793 Frend wrote a tract entitled Peace and Union recommended to the Associated Bodies of Republicans and Anti-republicans, in which he denounced abuses and condemned much of the liturgyLiturgy
Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...
of the church of England. On 4 March certain members of the senate met on the invitation of the vice-chancellor, Dr. Isaac Milner
Isaac Milner
Isaac Milner FRS was a mathematician, an inventor, the President of Queens' College, Cambridge and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics....
, and resolved that Frend should be prosecuted in the vice-chancellor's court. They deputed a committee of five to conduct the proceedings, one of the leaders being Thomas Kipling
Thomas Kipling
Thomas Kipling was a British clergymen.He entered St John's College, Cambridge University in 1764 at age 18 and was senior wrangler in 1768. He received an M.A. in 1771, a B.D. in 1779, and a D.D. in 1784....
. On 23 April a summons was issued by that official requiring Frend's presence in the law schools on 3 May to answer the charge of having violated the laws and statutes of the university by publishing the pamphlet. After several sittings and a long defence by Frend, the vice-chancellor and heads gave their decision on 28 May that the authorship had been proved and that Frend had offended against the statute ‘de concionibus.’
Frend was ordered to retract and confess his error, and as he declined was ‘banished from the university’ (30 May). An appeal against the sentence followed, and the university counsel including the barrister Simon Le Blanc became involved; it was unanimously affirmed by the delegates on 29 June, and on 26 November 1795 the court of king's bench discharged a rule which Frend had obtained for restoring him to the franchises of a resident M.A. The master and fellows of Jesus College decided, on 3 April 1793, that in consequence of this pamphlet he should not be allowed to reside in the college until he could produce satisfactory proofs of good behaviour. He thereupon appealed to the visitor, but on 13 July the appeal was dismissed. In spite of all these proceedings he enjoyed the emoluments of his fellowship until his marriage, and remained, while he lived, a member of his college and of the senate of the university.
Accounts of the trial
The proceedings attracted wide attention. One of Frend's supporters was Samuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
, then an undergraduate. Henry Gunning
Henry Gunning
Henry Gunning was senior Esquire Bedell of the University of Cambridge.-Life:Gunning was born at Newton, Cambridgeshire, on 13 February 1768...
, in his Reminiscences (i. 280–309), reprints an account of the trial, and, while condemning the tone of the pamphlet, describes the proceedings as a party move and vindicates the tract from the accusation of sedition. He adds that the vice-chancellor was biased against the accused, and that the undergraduates, among whom Coleridge was conspicuous, were unanimous in his favour. Augustus De Morgan
Augustus De Morgan
Augustus De Morgan was a British mathematician and logician. He formulated De Morgan's laws and introduced the term mathematical induction, making its idea rigorous. The crater De Morgan on the Moon is named after him....
wrote that chalked graffiti "Frend for ever" appeared; bishop-to-be Herbert Marsh
Herbert Marsh
Herbert Marsh was a bishop in the Church of England.-Life:He was educated at Faversham Grammar School, The King's School, Canterbury and St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA as second wrangler and was elected a fellow of St John's in 1779. He studied with J. D...
was apprehended, while two other future establishment pillars, John Singleton Copley
John Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst
John Singleton Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst PC KS FRS , was a British lawyer and politician. He was three times Lord Chancellor of Great Britain.-Background and education:...
and William Rough escaped. Milner later wrote identifying Frend and his "party" in the university as "Jacobinical", and commenting that the trial had been a turning point for them.
His trial was described by Frend himself in 'An Account of the Proceedings in the University of Cambridge against William Frend,' 1793, and in 'A Sequel to the Account,' &c., which dealt with the application to the court of king's bench in 1795. John Beverley also published accounts of the proceedings in 1793. Two letters from Richard Farmer
Richard Farmer
Dr Richard Farmer was a Shakespearean scholar and Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He is known for his Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare , in which he maintained that Shakespeare's knowledge of the classics was through translations, the errors of which he reproduced.-Life:He was born at...
to Samuel Parr
Samuel Parr
Samuel Parr , was an English schoolmaster, writer, minister and Doctor of Law. He was known in his time for political writing, and as "the Whig Johnson", though his reputation has lasted less well that Samuel Johnson's, and the resemblances were at a superficial level, Parr being no prose stylist,...
on this trial are in Parr's Works (i. 447–8), and in the same set (viii. 30–2) is a long letter from Frend on the treatment which Thomas Fyshe Palmer
Thomas Fyshe Palmer
Thomas Fyshe Palmer was an English-born Unitarian minister, political reformer and political exile.-Early life:Palmer was born in Ickwell, Bedfordshire, England, the son of Henry Fyshe who assumed the added name of Palmer because of an inheritance, and Elizabeth, daughter of James Ingram of...
, another reformer, had just received.
Many years later, in 1837, Frend gave Henry Crabb Robinson
Henry Crabb Robinson
Henry Crabb Robinson , diarist, was born in Bury St. Edmunds, England.He was articled to an attorney in Colchester. Between 1800 and 1805 he studied at various places in Germany, and became acquainted with nearly all the great men of letters there, including Goethe, Schiller, Johann Gottfried...
some anecdotes about his trial; and said that the promoters wished to expel him from the university, but that he had demanded a sight of the university roll, and on reference to the original document it was discovered that an informality existed which made his expulsion invalid.
Later life
On leaving Cambridge he came to London. He maintained himself by teaching and writing, to supplement his continuing fellowship stipend. It was at Frend's house that William WordsworthWilliam Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
met William Godwin
William Godwin
William Godwin was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism...
, on 27 February 1795. The company there that evening included George Dyer, Thomas Holcroft
Thomas Holcroft
Thomas Holcroft was an English dramatist and miscellaneous writer.-Early life:He was born in Orange Court, Leicester Fields, London. His father had a shoemaker's shop, and kept riding horses for hire; but having fallen into difficulties was reduced to the status of hawking peddler...
, James Losh
James Losh
James Losh was a lawyer, reformer and unitarian in Newcastle upon Tyne and later a court recorder.He was the first chairman of the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway and the vice President of the The Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne from 1799 to 1833.He kept a diary between...
, and John Tweddell. Frend was one of the orators in the mass meetings called by the London Corresponding Society
London Corresponding Society
London Corresponding Society was a moderate-radical body concentrating on reform of the Parliament of Great Britain, founded on 25 January 1792. The creators of the group were John Frost , an attorney, and Thomas Hardy, a shoemaker and metropolitan Radical...
in late 1795, with John Ashley, Matthew Brown, Richard Hodgson, John Gale Jones, John Richter, and John Thelwall
John Thelwall
John Thelwall , was a radical British orator, writer, and elocutionist.-Life:Thelwall was born in Covent Garden, London, but was descended from a Welsh family which had its seat at Plas y Ward, Denbighshire...
. Also of this circle was Mary Hays
Mary Hays
Mary Hays was an English novelist and feminist.- Early years :Mary Hays was born in Southwark, London on Oct. 13, 1759. Almost nothing is known of her first 17 years. In 1779 she fell in love with John Eccles who lived on Gainsford Street, where she also lived. Their parents opposed the match but...
; an attachment to Frend ended in an unsatisfactory fashion, Frend claiming that marriage was not possible on financial grounds; and she wrote autobiographically about the relationship in her first novel, Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796).
Frend was one of the group of reformers who supported at this time the early activities of the Literary Fund
Royal Literary Fund
The Royal Literary Fund is a benevolent fund set up to help published British writers in financial difficulties. It was founded by Reverend David Williams in 1790 and has received bequests and donations, including royal patronage, ever since...
set up by David Williams
David Williams (philosopher)
David Williams , was a Welsh philosopher of the Enlightenment period. He was an ordained minister, theologian and political polemicist, and was the founder in 1788 of the Royal Literary Fund.-Upbringing:...
. There he worked alongside Thomas Christie
Thomas Christie
Thomas Christie was a radical political writer during the late 18th century. He was one of the two original founders of the important liberal journal, the Analytical Review....
, Alexander Jardine, James Martin, and John Hurford Stone
John Hurford Stone
John Hurford Stone was a British radical political reformer and publisher who spent much of his life in France.Stone was born in Taunton, Somerset. After the death of his father, he went to live with his uncle, William Hurford, who was a coal merchant, in London...
. Their views, however, did not have it all their own way.
In 1806 he took part in the formation of the Rock Life Assurance Company, to which he was appointed as actuary
Actuary
An actuary is a business professional who deals with the financial impact of risk and uncertainty. Actuaries provide expert assessments of financial security systems, with a focus on their complexity, their mathematics, and their mechanisms ....
. He continued in radical activities, participating around 1810 in a fundraising committee, with Timothy Brown, John Cartwright
John Cartwright (political reformer)
John Cartwright was an English naval officer, Nottinghamshire militia major and prominent campaigner for parliamentary reform. He subsequently became known as the Father of Reform...
, William Cobbett
William Cobbett
William Cobbett was an English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist, who was born in Farnham, Surrey. He believed that reforming Parliament and abolishing the rotten boroughs would help to end the poverty of farm labourers, and he attacked the borough-mongers, sinecurists and "tax-eaters" relentlessly...
, and Robert Waithman
Robert Waithman
Robert Waithman , Lord Mayor of London, was born at Wrexham.After being employed for some time in a London linen draper's, he opened, about 1786, a draper's shop of his own, and made a considerable fortune. In 1818 he was returned to Parliament, as a liberal, for the City of London...
, to support Gwyllym Lloyd Wardle.
A severe illness in 1826 compelled him to offer his resignation, which was accepted in 1827 when an annuity was given to him. His health subsequently recovered, and he resumed an active life. Frend and Joshua Milne
Joshua Milne
-Carlisle table:In 1815 he compiled the Carlisle table based on figures from the 1780 census and deaths in two parishes of Carlisle, England. It proved remarkably accurate and was still in use in parts of the 20th century.-References:...
, another actuary, were consulted by the statistician John Rickman
John Rickman
John Rickman was an English government official and statistician of the early nineteenth century.He was born in Newburn, Northumberland, son of the Rev Thomas Rickman and educated at Guildford Grammar School, Magdalen Hall, Oxford and Lincoln College, Oxford...
about the 1831 census. In 1840 he was attacked by paralysis. He lingered with almost total loss of speech and motion, though mentally alert. He died at his house, Tavistock Square
Tavistock Square
Tavistock Square is a public square in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden with a fine garden.-Public art:The centre-piece of the gardens is a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, which was installed in 1968....
, London, on 21 February 1841.
Associations, influence and views
Among Frend's pupils were Edward Daniel ClarkeEdward Daniel Clarke
Edward Daniel Clarke was an English naturalist, mineralogist and traveller.-Life:Edward Daniel Clarke was born at Willingdon, Sussex, and educated first at Tonbridge....
, John Singleton Copley
John Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst
John Singleton Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst PC KS FRS , was a British lawyer and politician. He was three times Lord Chancellor of Great Britain.-Background and education:...
, and Robert Malthus; he was himself the last of ‘the learned anti-Newtonians and a noted oppugner of all that distinguishes Algebra from Arithmetic.’ In Cambridge the leading intellectual dissenters formed a circle including George Dyer, Benjamin Flower
Benjamin Flower
Benjamin Flower was an English radical journalist and political writer, a vocal opponent of his country's involvement in the early stages of the Napoleonic Wars.-Life:...
, Robert Hall and Robert Tyrwhitt
Robert Tyrwhitt
-Life:Born in London, he was younger son of Robert Tyrwhitt , residentiary canon of St Paul's Cathedral, by his wife Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edmund Gibson, bishop of London. Thomas Tyrwhitt was his eldest brother. He entered as a pensioner at Jesus College, Cambridge on 9 March 1753, and...
, as well as Frend and Robert Robinson.
A Unitarian and a Whig by conviction, reformers such as Francis Burdett and John Horne Tooke
John Horne Tooke
John Horne Tooke was an English politician and philologist.-Early life and work:He was born in Newport Street, Long Acre, Westminster, the third son of John Horne, a poulterer in Newport Market. As a youth at Eton College, Tooke described his father to friends as a "turkey merchant"...
were his friends, and he maintained an active correspondence with the main supporters of radicalism. Francis Place
Francis Place
Francis Place was an English social reformer.-Early career and influence:Born in the debtor's prison which his father oversaw near Drury Lane, Place was schooled for ten years before being apprenticed to a leather-breeches maker. At eighteen he was an independent journeyman, and in 1790 was...
acknowledged an intellectual debt to Frend. Frend's Unitarian network, as well as the group round Priestley, included James Gifford the elder and Robert Hibbert
Robert Hibbert
Robert Hibbert was the founder of the Hibbert Trust.-Biography:The third and posthumous son of John Hibbert , a Jamaica merchant, and Janet, daughter of Samuel Gordon, he was born in Jamaica; hence he spoke of himself as a Creole. His mother died early. Between 1784 and 1788, he was a pupil of...
. When it came to Godwin, Frend like others had difficulties with his atheism
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
.
He was frequently consulted by Palmer in support of his claim for a public grant for his services in improving the transmission of letters. Frend thought that the rate of postage should be reduced to a fixed charge of 2d. or 1d., and drew up a statement to that effect which reached a member of Robert Peel
Robert Peel
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet was a British Conservative statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 December 1834 to 8 April 1835, and again from 30 August 1841 to 29 June 1846...
's cabinet, but nothing came of it at that time.
Works
Frend's works dealt with many subjects. His publications were:- 'An Address to the Inhabitants of Cambridge and its Neighbourhood ... to turn from the false Worship of Three Persons to the Worship of the One True God,' St. Ives, 1788. The second edition was entitled 'An Address to the Members of the Church of England and to Protestant Trinitarians in General,' &c., and it was followed by 'A Second Address to the Members of the Church of England,' &c. These were reprinted in 'Six Tracts in Vindication of the Worship of One God,' and in other unitarian publications, and were answered by the Rev. Henry William Coulthurst, by George Townsend of Ramsgate in two tracts in 1789, and by Alexander Pirie in a volume issued at Perth in 1792. Frend responded in 'Thoughts on Subscription to religious tests ... in a letter to the Rev. H. W. Coulthurst,' and in 'Mr. Coulthurst's blunders exposed, or a review of his several texts.' For these pamphlets Frend was expelled from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (An Account of some late Proceedings of the Society, 1789).
- 'Peace and Union recommended,' &c., 1793; 2nd ed. 1793, in which he described the evils of the then parliamentary system and of the game and poor laws, and explained the necessity for numerous reforms. The offending passages are set out in the second edition in single inverted commas.
- 'Scarcity of Bread: a plan for reducing its high price,' 1795, two editions. He urged subscriptions by the rich for the relief of the poor.
- 'Principles of Algebra, 1796 (with a very long appendix by Francis MaseresFrancis MaseresFrancis Maseres was an English lawyer. He is known as attorney general of the Province of Quebec, judge, mathematician, historian, member of the Royal Society, and cursitor baron of the exchequer.- Biography :...
); pt. ii. 1799. Frend rejected the use of negative quantities. - 'A Letter to the Vice-chancellor of Cambridge, by Wm. Frend, candidate for the Lucasian Professorship,' 1798.
- 'Principles of Taxation,' 1799, advocating a graduated system of income-tax.
- 'Animadversions on Bishop Pretyman's Elements of Christian Theology,' 1800; to which Joshua ToulminJoshua ToulminJoshua Toulmin of Taunton, England was a noted theologian and a serial Dissenting minister of Presbyterian , Baptist , and then Unitarian congregations...
replied in a preface to his 'Four Discourses on Baptism.' - 'The Effect of Paper Money on the Price of Provisions,' 1801, which was provoked by the controversy between Sir Francis Baring and Walter BoydWalter Boyd (financier)-Life:Boyd was born about 1754. Before the outbreak of the French Revolution he was a banker in Paris. The progress of events soon caused him to flee, and the property of the firm of Boyd, Ker, & Co., of which he was the chief member, was confiscated in October 1793. On March 1793 the firm of Boyd,...
. - 'The Gentleman's Monthly Miscellany,' which lived for a few months of 1803, and was edited in whole or in part by Frend.
- 'Evening Amusements, or the Beauty of the Heavens Displayed.' It lasted from 1804 to 1822, 'an astronomical elementary work of a new character, which had great success; the earlier numbers went through several editions.'
- 'Patriotism: an Essay dedicated to the Volunteers,' 1804.
- 'Tangible Arithmetic, or the Art of Numbering made Easy by means of an Arithmetical Toy,' 1805. 13. 'A Letter on the Slave Trade,' 1816.
- 'The National Debt in its True Colours,' 1817. Reprinted in the Pamphleteer, ix. 415-32. He advocated its extinction by an annual sinking fund.
- 'Memoirs of a Goldfinch,' a poem, with notes and illustrations on natural history and natural philosophy (anon.), 1819.
- 'Is it Impossible to Free the Atmosphere of London in a very considerable degree from Smoke?' 1819. A few copies only for friends, but it was reproduced in the Pamphleteer, xv. 61-5.
- 'A Plan of Universal Education,' 1832. A fragment of a volume, 'Letters on a hitherto Undescribed Country, 'written some years before but never published.
Frend, besides contributing two articles to 'Tracts on the Resolution of Affected Algebraick Equations,' edited by Francis Maseres in 1800, and one tract to the same editor's 'Scriptores Logarithmici,' vol. vi. 1807, suggested other matters to him in the same publications. Maseres in his 'Tracts on the Resolution of Cubick and Biquadratick Equations,' published supplements to his appendix to Frend's 'Principles of Algebra.'
Family
In 1808 he married a daughter of the Rev. Francis Blackburne, vicar of Brignall in Yorkshire, and granddaughter of Archdeacon Francis BlackburneFrancis Blackburne
Francis Blackburne PC KS was an Irish judge and eventually became Lord Chancellor of Ireland.-Background:...
. They had seven children, and their eldest daughter, Sophia Elizabeth, married in the autumn of 1837 Augustus De Morgan
Augustus De Morgan
Augustus De Morgan was a British mathematician and logician. He formulated De Morgan's laws and introduced the term mathematical induction, making its idea rigorous. The crater De Morgan on the Moon is named after him....
.
Works
- Peace and Union Recommended to the Associated Bodies of Republicans and Anti-Republicans (1793)
Further reading
- Frida Knight; University rebel, the life of William Frend (1757-1841); London, Victor Gollancz, 1971; ISBN 0575006331