John Hellins Primary School

The Rev. John Hellins became vicar of Potterspury in 1790, having been curate at Greens Norton for the previous seven years. Born at Ashreigny in Devon in about 1749, the son of a poor labourer, he was apprenticed by the parish to a cooper in Chulmleigh and remained in this trade until he was about 20 years old. Using suitable textbooks, he taught himself elementary mathematics. After conversation with him, a local schoolteacher realised that here was more than a mere maker of barrels, and soon after, he recommended him for a vacancy that arose at a neighbouring school.

 

John Hellins became a teacher in a small school at Bishop’s Tawton, near Barnstaple. While there he made the acquaintance of the Rev. Malachy Hitchins, a meeting which was to change his life forever. With Hitchins’ influence he was made assistant to Nevil Maskelyne, the Astronomer Royal at Greenwich Observatory. He remained there until 1776 and during that time studied Latin and Greek and qualified for holy orders.

 

He became curate at Constantine in Cornwall in 1779. Besides studying the classics, he extended his knowledge of mathematics to such an extent that he submitted a paper entitled ‘Theorems for computing logarithms’ to the Royal Society. This was the first of nine of his papers to be published by the Society. Hellins continued to write and publish books on mathematics and astronomy for the rest of his life, and was rewarded for his work by being made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1796.

 

Two years later, he received another great honour, the Royal Society’s annual Copley Medal, following publication of his paper, ‘An improving solution of a problem in physical astronomy’, which provided a mathematical solution that helped in computing the perturbations in the motion of the Earth, Mars and Venus due to their mutual attraction. In 1806, when William Windham, the minister of war, was devising a new military system, it was Hellins who furnished all the calculations on which it was based. Another great achievement came in 1779 when he was awarded the Copley medal. This medal which has been awarded annually since 1731 is the Royal Society’s oldest and most prestigious award. Its importance can be judged by considering some of those who have also been recipients, namely ; Farady,Darwin, Pasteur, Franklin, Rutherford, Einstein and Stephen Hawking.   

 

Perhaps John Hellins’ greatest achievement locally was in starting a day school in Potterspury in 1817. His name is now probably the best known from Potterspury’s past, having been adopted in 1990 as the name for the village school. Few people can have had such a lasting impact on the life of the village.

 

After a period of failing health, this remarkable man died on 5 April 1827. His remains, together with those of his wife, Ann, whom he married in 1794, and his niece, also Ann, are buried in St Nicholas churchyard to the north of the church. The grave is distinguished by a tall marble cross and surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. The plinth is simply inscribed on one side, ‘Here Rest JH + AH + AM’, and on the opposite side, ‘Looking unto JESUS’.

 

t was not until 2007 that a picture of John Hellins energed, when one of his descendants visited the village and allowed the school to scan the sketch pictured here. It is dated 1805, and was photographed in 1910 by his great-grandson, Henry Herbert Hellins. It is reproduced here by kind permission of Henry’s great-grandaughter, Heather Thomas