Douglas Denon Heath (1811–1897) was an English barrister and judge, known also as a literary editor, classical scholar and writer on physics.
Life
The second son of George Heath, serjeant-at-law and son of James Heath the engraver, and his wife, Anne Raymond Dunbar, he was born in
Chancery Lane
Chancery Lane is a one-way street that forms part of the City of London#Boundary, western boundary of the City of London. The east side of the street is entirely within the City,Dunbar Isidore Heath, and Leopold Heath. After school at
Greenwich
Greenwich ( , , ) is an List of areas of London, area in south-east London, England, within the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Greater London, east-south-east of Charing Cross.
Greenwich is notable for its maritime hi ...
, he spent most of 1826-7 with friends of his father's in France, including his godfather
Vivant Denon
Dominique Vivant, Baron Denon (; 4 January 1747 – 27 April 1825) was a French artist, writer, diplomat, author, and archaeologist. Denon was a diplomat for France under Louis XV and Louis XVI. He was appointed as the first Director of the Louv ...
. He went into residence at
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...
, in October 1828, and read for a year with
Henry Malden
Henry Malden (1800–1876) was a British academic.
Life
He was the son of Jonas Malden, a Putney surgeon. Malden attended Preston's School and was a scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained a B.A. in 1822 and an M.A. in 1825. ...
. Among his Cambridge friends was
James Spedding
James Spedding (28 June 1808 – 9 March 1881) was an English author, chiefly known as the editor of the works of Francis Bacon.
Life
He was born in Cumberland, the younger son of a country squire, and was educated at Bury St Edmunds and Trinit ...
, with whom he visited
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poetry, Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism, Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Balla ...
and
Alfred Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of ...
. Heath obtained a scholarship at Trinity on 23 April 1830, and two years later graduated
senior wrangler
The Senior Wrangler is the top mathematics undergraduate at the University of Cambridge in England, a position which has been described as "the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain".
Specifically, it is the person who achiev ...
, and took the first
Smith's prize
Smith's Prize was the name of each of two prizes awarded annually to two research students in mathematics and theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge from 1769. Following the reorganization in 1998, they are now awarded under the names ...
. In the classical tripos of the same year (1832) he was placed ninth in the first class, in a strong year. He was elected to a Trinity fellowship on 2 October 1832.
Heath entered the
Inner Temple
The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional association for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practice as a barrister in England and Wa ...
, and was
called to the bar
The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...
in 1835. In 1838 his father gained him the reversion of his own post as county clerk of
Middlesex
Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...
. In 1846 the courts of the county clerk were abolished; Heath declined to retire on full salary and took on the work of a county court judge in the Bloomsbury district.
On his father's death in 1852, Heath became the owner of Kitlands, a small estate near
Leith Hill
Leith Hill in southern England is the highest summit of the Greensand Ridge, approximately southwest of Dorking, Surrey and southwest of central London. It reaches above sea level, and is the second highest point in southeast England, aft ...
, Surrey. He resided there, and Tennyson, Spedding, and
William Hepworth Thompson
William Hepworth Thompson (27 March 18101 October 1886) was an English classical scholar and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Early life
Thompson was born at York and was privately educated in Buckinghamshire before entering Trinity Co ...
visited.
Marianne North
Marianne North (24 October 1830 – 30 August 1890) was a prolific English Victorian biologist and botanical artist, notable for her plant and landscape paintings, her extensive foreign travels, her writings, her plant discoveries and th ...
painted at Kitlands for the collection at
Kew Gardens
Kew Gardens is a botanical garden, botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botany, botanical and mycology, mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1759, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its li ...
.
Heath was one of the founders and benefactors of the Surrey county school at
Cranleigh
Cranleigh is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Borough of Waverley, Surrey, England. It lies southeast of Guildford on a minor road east of the A281, which links Guildford with Horsham. It is in the north-west corner ...
. He died unmarried at Kitlands on 25 September 1897, and was buried in Coldharbour churchyard. One of the early
Cambridge Apostles
The Cambridge Apostles (also known as the Conversazione Society) is an intellectual society at the University of Cambridge founded in 1820 by George Tomlinson, a Cambridge student who became the first Bishop of Gibraltar.
History
Student ...
, he was the last survivor of that early group.
Works
For Spedding, Heath edited the legal remains of Bacon for the seventh volume of the major edition of the ''Works of Francis Bacon'' (1859, ed. Spedding, Ellis, and Heath). The several manuscripts of Bacon's professional writings were carefully collated, and many passages for the first time made intelligible.
After retiring from the law, Heath wrote papers on ''Secular Local Changes in the Sea Level'' and the ''Dynamical Theory of Deep Sea Tides and the Effects of Tidal Friction'' (''
Philosophical Magazine
The ''Philosophical Magazine'' is one of the oldest scientific journals published in English. It was established by Alexander Tilloch in 1798;John Burnett"Tilloch, Alexander (1759–1825)" Dictionary of National Biography#Oxford Dictionary of ...
'' March 1866 and March 1867). In 1874 he published ''An Elementary Exposition of the Doctrine of Energy'', on the
conservation of energy
The law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant; it is said to be Conservation law, ''conserved'' over time. In the case of a Closed system#In thermodynamics, closed system, the principle s ...
.
Heath defended
Aristotle
Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...
against what he saw as misconceptions by
George Grote
George Grote (; 17 November 1794 – 18 June 1871) was an English political radical and classical historian. He is now best known for his major work, the voluminous ''History of Greece''.
Early life
George Grote was born at Clay Hill near Be ...
and others. He wrote on the ''Arabicus Mons'', and on the ''
Cratylus
Cratylus ( ; , ''Kratylos'') was an ancient Athenian philosopher from the mid-late 5th century BC, known mostly through his portrayal in Plato's dialogue '' Cratylus''. He was a radical proponent of Heraclitean philosophy and influenced the you ...
'' of
Plato
Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...
. He also published papers on the veracity of
Herodotus
Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...
, and his views were strengthened by a journey up the
River Nile
The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the longest river i ...
as far as
Dongola
Dongola (), also known as Urdu or New Dongola, is the capital of Northern State in Sudan, on the banks of the Nile. It should not be confused with Old Dongola, a now deserted medieval city located 80 km upstream on the opposite bank.
Et ...