John Hellins and the Royal Society
Famous locally as the man who founded Potterspury's village school in 1817, the Reverend John Hellins FRS was a renowned mathematician and astronomer who made a significant contribution to the advancement of mathematical and astronomical knowledge in the late 18th century.
This blog explores Hellins's extraordinary progress towards becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society and winner of the society's most prestigious award, the Copley Medal.
In an age when advancement depended as much on who you knew as what you knew, a rural parson had to work hard to put his contacts to good use. Fortunately, for Hellins, his work at the Greenwich Observatory in the 1770s had given him connections at the heart of the scientific establishment and he corresponded regularly with no less a person that Nevil Maskelyne, the Astronomer Royal.
Steve Parkin uses Hellins's account of a storm in Potterspury in 1796, 'a spectacle at once curious and awful', to explore both Hellins scientific research and his ambitions for advancement. Follow the link below to read the full feature.
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