Israel Lyons the Younger (1739 – 1 May 1775) mathematician and botanist, was born in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

, the son of Israel Lyons the elder (died 1770). He was regarded as a prodigy, especially in mathematics, and Robert Smith, master of

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

, took him under his wing and paid for his attendance.

Biography

Due to his Ashkenazi

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

origins, Lyons was not permitted to become an official member of the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

. Nevertheless, his brilliance resulted in his publication ''Treatise on Fluxions'' at the age of 19, and his enthusiasm for botany resulted in a published survey of Cambridge flora a few years later. An Oxford undergraduate,

Joseph Banks Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, (19 June 1820) was an English Natural history, naturalist, botanist, and patron of the natural sciences. Banks made his name on the European and American voyages of scientific exploration, 1766 natural-history ...

, paid Lyons to deliver a series of botany lectures at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. Lyons was selected by the

Astronomer Royal Astronomer Royal is a senior post in the Royal Households of the United Kingdom. There are two officers, the senior being the astronomer royal dating from 22 June 1675; the junior is the astronomer royal for Scotland dating from 1834. The Astro ...

to compute astronomical tables for the

Nautical Almanac A nautical almanac is a publication describing the positions of a selection of celestial bodies for the purpose of enabling navigators to use celestial navigation to determine the position of their ship while at sea. The Almanac specifies for ea ...

. Later, Banks secured Lyons a position as the astronomer for the 1773 North Pole voyage led by Constantine Phipps. Lyons married, in March 1774, Phoebe Pearson, daughter of Newman Pearson of Over, Cambridgeshire, and settled in Rathbone Place, London. There he died of measles on 1 May 1775, at the age of only 36, while preparing a complete edition of

Edmond Halley Edmond (or Edmund) Halley (; – ) was an English astronomer, mathematician and physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed in 1720. From an observatory he constructed on Saint Helena in 1676–77, Hal ...

's works sponsored by the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

References

* Lynn B. Glyn, "Israel Lyons: A Short but Starry Career. The Life of an Eighteenth-Century Jewish Botanist and Astronomer," ''Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London'', Vol. 56, No. 3, 2002, pp. 275–305. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lyons, Israel People associated with the University of Cambridge 18th-century English mathematicians 1739 births 1775 deaths English botanical writers Deaths from measles 18th-century British botanists Jewish British scientists Jewish biologists English Ashkenazi Jews

Biography

See also

References