Atwood, George

, F. R. S. an eminent mathematician, was born in 1746, and admitted of Westminster school in 1759, from whence he was elected to Trinity college, Cambridge, in 1765, where he took his bachelor’s | degree in 1769 and his master’s in 1772. He was for some time a tutor, and for many years a fellow of that college, and read to the whole university lectures upon several branches of experimental philosophy, part of which he published under the title of “An Analysis of a course of Lectures on the principles of Natural Philosophy, read in the university of Cambridge, by G. A. &c.” 1784, 8vo. These lectures were much attended and justly admired“. The right hon. Wm. Pitt having been one of his auditors, was induced to form a more intimate acquaintance with him; and discovering that his talents might be eminently useful in the public service, bestowed upon him, in 1784, the place of patent searcher of the customs, London, that he might be enabled to devote a larger portion of his time to financial calculations, in which Mr. Pitt employed him, not more to his own satisfaction than to the advantage of the revenue. He continued in this employment under that eminent statesman, until his declining health rendered him incapable of intense application. In 1784, he also published” A treatise on the rectilinear Motion and Rotation of Bodies, with a description of original Experiments relative to the subject," 8vo. He contributed several papers to the Philosophical Transactions, and was honoured, on one occasion, with the Copleian medal. He died at his house in Westminster, July 1807, and was interred in St. Margaret’s church, justly esteemed by a numerous list of friends, and by the friends of science. ¹