Review of Benjamin Wardhaugh’s Poor Robin’s Prophecies: A Curious Almanac, and the everyday mathematics of Georgian Britain
Benjamin Wardhaugh’s 2012 book, Poor Robin’s Prophecies: A Curious Almanac and the everyday mathematics of Georgian Britain (Poor Robin’s Prophecies), discusses the various roles math played in the lives of Britain between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Wardhaugh’s general argument is that mathematics in Georgian Britain was an empowering tool in the hands of the everyday Briton and that the same people also used mathematics as a recreational activity. The author of Poor Robins’s Prophecies, Benjamin Wardhaugh, is a historian of mathematics who received his undergraduate from Trinity College, Cambridge, a master’s in music from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and his Ph.D. from Hertford College at Oxford. Wardhaugh served as a Fellow of All Souls College from 2012 -2020. He is currently based at Oxford, researching and writing. Wardhaugh’s other research interests include the mathematical theories of music in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England. Poor Robin’s Prophecies uses primary sources, including textbooks, handwritten exercise books, journals, and almanacs, to illustrate how everyday British people viewed and used mathematics in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Wardhaugh arranged his book topically and chronologically with a loose flow from chapter to chapter. Prince Robin’s Prophecies: A Curious Almanac and the everyday mathematics of Georgian Britain by Benjamin Wardhaugh is an enjoyable, if disjointed, read about the history of mathematics and a long-lived influential almanac in Georgian Britain with a solid first half and a second half that is less engaging.
In Poor Robin’s Prophecies, Wardhaugh seeks answers to multiple historical lines of questioning, including how mathematical calculations and prediction can go wrong, how mathematics was taught and when the British learned it, what was used to teach it, and how Poor Robin himself can be a guide through the timeline of the book. Wardhaugh’s loose argument for Poor Robin’s Prophecies is that Poor Robin represents how people in Georgian Britain viewed and learned math, and the almanac’s satirical take on life represents the fun that the British would eventually have with mathematics. Poor Robin’s changing opinion of mathematics is meant to parallel that of the English people’s feelings regarding numbers. Unfortunately, Wardhaugh’s success in using Poor Robin’s Almanac as a guide for the reader is not as effective as he hoped. Passages about Poor Robin’s history are scattered throughout the book and often feel stuck in and disconnected from the rest of the text. Poor Robin’s appearance in the second chapter of Poor Robin’s Prophecies is one of the almanac’s few appearances, which flows nicely with the rest of the text. The chapter details how mathematical predictions and calculations can go wrong and how those mistakes affected the reputations of mathematicians and mathematics in Britain. Wardhaugh does an excellent job weaving Poor Robin’s and other almanac’s suspicions about math into this chapter.
Poor Robin’s Prophecies chronicles the increase in the use of mathematics in everyday life and leisure of Georgian Britain, Wardhaugh begins by explaining the distrust Britain in the seventeenth century had of numbers and those who used them, then discusses how math was taught and whom, and how those who learned mathematics employed it in their daily lives. While Wardhaugh explains the mathematical lives in Georgian Britain, he also attempts to draw parallels with a long-running almanac, Poor Robin’s Almanac, which ran under various authors from 1663 into the nineteenth century.
Chapters two, “The dismal and long expected morning: Getting it wrong,” and three, “Fitted to the meanest capacity: Learning it,” are the most successful at conveying Wardhaugh’s thesis. In chapter three, Wardhaugh discusses the various methods children and adults use to learn mathematics. Wardhaugh uses exercise books from several people to illustrate how much pride people took in the knowledge they gained. Some books are carefully illustrated using multiple colors of ink and watercolors. Ann Monhan Elcot’s exercise book showed usage in both her childhood and adulthood, indicating she refreshed her knowledge of mathematics using the book. Ann believed the knowledge in her exercise book was so valuable that she passed it on to her daughter. Wardhaugh touched on the differences in gender education and explained how mathematics was taught in schools and by tutors. Poor Robin’s Prophecies includes sample problems throughout, but the problems in chapter three are primarily what an eleven-year-old worked on. Wardhaugh explains how adults could begin or improve their arithmetic skills as well, using the Spittlefields Mathematical Society as an example. Wardhaugh explains that the society was initially attended by tradesmen who wanted to improve their mathematical skills. Although meetings were spent working on arithmetic problems, members were expected to share their knowledge with other members. Wardhaugh does a thorough enough job covering his points in this chapter and makes it easy to follow.
Poor Robin’s Prophecies has an interesting premise, but the book does not flow well. The sections on Poor Robin’s Almanac do not always fit in with the chapter’s content, leaving the reader confused about why the sections are there at all. A book on Poor Robin’s Almanac and one on mathematics in Georgian Britain may have worked better. That is not to say that the mathematical sections flow very well together. It almost would have been better if the book was a series of essays instead of attempting continuity throughout. Poor Robin’s Prophecies is a popular history book with some latitude in the lack of footnotes or end notes. However, Wardhaugh’s “Notes of Sources” section is almost laughably brief, and his sources are not noted in the text. This leaves readers who want to know more at a hefty disadvantage. This book is an interesting introduction to the mathematics of Georgian Britain and gives insight into the lives of those who thought math was worth learning. A list of secondary and primary sources would help those reading the book go further in their quest for mathematical historical knowledge. Wardhaugh’s book was an interesting choice for a class on the Scientific Revolution, math is not an obvious fit until one realizes that almost all of the works read this semester have math as a base, but the two books that fit best are Margaret Schotte’s Sailing School: Navigating Science and Skill, 1550 – 1800 and Elaine Leong’s Recipes and Everyday Knowledge: Medicine, Science, and the Household in Early Modern England. Schotte’s book covers the mathematical education needed to navigate a ship successfully, and Wardhaugh’s book briefly covers navigation and trigonometry. Leong’s book discusses the recipe trade in early modern England. Unsaid in her book are the mathematical skills needed to alter recipes by both men and women, a common practice at the time. The trade in Leong’s book also connects with Wardhaugh’s book in that while recipes were traded in social networks, mathematical problems were also traded in the same period. Wardhaugh’s book is best enjoyed by the curious non-specialist reader who wants to know more about the history of mathematics. Benjamin Wardhaugh’s Poor Robin’s Prophecies: A Curious Almanac, and the everyday mathematics of Georgian Britain is an enjoyable but disjointed read for someone interested in the history of mathematics in Georgian Britain but is not looking to the book for a comprehensive list of further reading.
