Isaac Milner (11 January 1750 – 1 April 1820) was a mathematician, an inventor, the President of
Queens' College, Cambridge
Queens' College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Queens' is one of the oldest colleges of the university, founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou. The college spans the River Cam, c ...
and
Lucasian Professor of Mathematics
The Lucasian Chair of Mathematics () is a mathematics professorship in the University of Cambridge, England; its holder is known as the Lucasian Professor. The post was founded in 1663 by Henry Lucas, who was Cambridge University's Member of Pa ...
.
He was instrumental in the 1785
religious conversion
Religious conversion is the adoption of a set of beliefs identified with one particular religious denomination to the exclusion of others. Thus "religious conversion" would describe the abandoning of adherence to one denomination and affiliati ...
of
William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce (24 August 175929 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist and leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually bec ...
and helped him through many trials and was a great supporter of the
abolitionists' campaign against the
slave trade
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
, steeling Wilberforce with his assurance before the 1789 Parliamentary debate:
He was also a
natural philosopher
Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe. It was dominant before the development of modern science.
From the ancient wor ...
and the
Dean of Carlisle
The Dean of Carlisle is based in Carlisle, UK and is the head of the Chapter of Carlisle Cathedral. There have been 39 previous incumbents and the post is currently vacant.
List of deans
Early modern
*1542–1547 Lancelot Salkeld (last prior ...
.
Biography
Milner was born on 11 January 1750 in Mabgate, Leeds. He began his education at a grammar school in Leeds in 1756, but this ended in 1760 with the death of his father. He was apprenticed as a weaver, reading the classics when time permitted, until his elder