NEEDHAM (John Tuberville)

, a respectable philosopher and catholic divine, was born at London December 10, 1713. His father possessed a consider-| able patrimony at Hilston, in the county of Monmouth, being of the younger or catholic branch of the Needham family, and who died young, leaving but a small fortune to his four children. Our author, who was the eldest son, studied in the English college of Douai, where he took orders, taught rhetoric for several years, and surpassed all the other professors of that seminary in the knowledge of experimental philosophy.

In 1740, he was engaged by his superiors in the service of the English mission, and was entrusted with the direction of the school erected at Twyford, near Winchester, for the education of the Roman Catholic youth. —In 1744 he was appointed professor of philosophy in the English college at Lisbon, where, on account of his bad health, he remained only 15 months. After his return, he passed several years at London and Paris, which were chiefly employed in microscopical observations, and in other branches of experimental philosophy. The results of these observations and experiments were published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London in the year 1749, and in a volume in 12mo at Paris in 1750; and an account of them was also given by M. Busson, in the first volumes of his natural history. There was an intimate connection subsisted between Mr. Needham and this illustrious French naturalist: they made their experiments and observations together; though the results and systems which they deduced from the same objects and operations were totally different.

Mr. Needham was elected a member of the Royal Society of London in the year 1747, and of the Antiquarian Society some time after.—From the year 1751 to 1767 he was chiefly employed in finishing the education of several English and Irish noblemen, by attending them as tutor in their travels through France, Italy, and other countries. He then retired from this wandering life to the English seminary at Paris, and in 1768 was chosen by the Royal Academy of Sciences in that city a corresponding member.

When the regency of the Austrian Netherlands, for the revival of philosophy and literature in that country, formed the project of an Imperial Academy, which was preceded by the erection of a small literary society to prepare the way for its execution, Mr. Needham was invited to Brussels, and was appointed successively chief director of both these foundations; an appointment which he held, together with some ecclesiastical preferments in the Low Countries, till his death, which happened December the 30th 1781.

Mr. Needham's papers inserted in the Philosophical Transactions, were the following, viz:

1. Account of Chalky Tubulous Concretions, called Malm: vol. 42.

2. Microscopical Observations on Worms in Smutty Corn: vol. 42.

3. Electrical Experiments lately made at Paris: vol. 44.

4. Account of M. Buffon's Mirror, which burns at 66 feet: ib.

5. Observations upon the Generation, Composition, and Decomposition of Animal and Vegetable Substances: vol. 45.

6. On the Discovery of Asbestos in France: vol. 51.

Other works printed at Paris, in French, are,

1. New Microscopical Discoveries: 1745.

2. The same enlarged: 1750.

3. On Microscopical, and the Generation of Organized Bodies: 2 vols, 1769.

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Entry taken from A Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary, by Charles Hutton, 1796.

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NATIVITY
NAVIGATION
NAVIGATOR
NEAP
NEBULOUS
* NEEDHAM (John Tuberville)
NEEDLE
NEGATIVE
NEWEL
NEWTON (Dr. John)
NEWTON (Sir Isaac)