Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 28.djvu/283

 HUNT, ROBERT (d. 1608?), minister at James Town, Virginia, was apparently a son of Robert Hunt, M.A., vicar of Reculver, Kent. He was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, proceeded LL.B. in 1606, and took orders. In the same year he was chosen by Richard Hakluyt, with the approval of Archbishop Bancroft, to accompany the first settlers to Virginia. The expedition sailed from Blackwall on 19 Dec. 1606, and arrived in Virginia on 27 April 1607. During the voyage Hunt was seriously ill. A settlement having been formed at a place which was called James Town, Hunt on Sunday, 21 June, there celebrated the communion, that being the first occasion on which the ordinance was observed by Englishmen in America. By his efforts a rude church was soon afterwards erected, but it was burnt down, together with the greater part of the dwellings of the new colony, in the ensuing winter. Hunt lost his books and all that he had except the clothes on his back. A new church was reared in the spring of 1608, but Hunt did not long survive.



HUNT, ROBERT (1807–1887), scientific writer, born at Plymouth Dock (now Devonport) 6 Sept. 1807, was the posthumous son of a naval officer who had perished with all the crew of a sloop of war in the Grecian Archipelago. After attending schools at Plymouth and at Penzance, Hunt was placed with a surgeon practising at Paddington, London. He acquired some knowledge of practical chemistry with a smattering of Latin, and studied anatomy under (1761-1833) [q.v.] He was afterwards for more than five years with a physician, and was for four years following in charge of a medical dispensary in London. He made the acquaintance of 'Radical Hunt' [see ], who helped to direct his studies. On inheriting a small property on the Fowey in Cornwall, he settled there for a short time; studied the folklore of the district; published a descriptive poem, 'The Mount's Bay,' Penzance, 1829, 12mo; established a mechanics' institute at Penzance, and gave the first lecture to the members.

Hunt soon returned to London and was employed by a firm of chemical manufacturers. On the discovery of photography he at once began a series of careful experiments, and soon after published in the 'Philosophical Transactions' several papers on his results, one being the discovery that the proto-sulphate of iron could be used as a developing agentagent [see Mercer, John] [sic]. In 1840 he was appointed secretary of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, and soon after removed with his family to Falmouth. Devoting himself to scientific research, he discovered that the chemical rays of the solar spectrum sensibly accelerate the germination of seeds. In 1842 he read a paper before the Cornwall Polytechnic on a 'Peculiar Band of Light encircling the Sun.' In 1843-4, before the British Association, he announced that there are three distinct phenomena in the solar ray, light, heat, and photographic power, the last being what Sir J. Herschel and he agreed to call actinism. His 'Popular Treatise of the Art of Photography' (Glasgow, 1841, 8vo), the first treatise printed in this country, passed through six editions. He wrote the article 'Photography' for the 'Encyclopædia Metropolitana,' and it was afterwards (1851) published separately. His 'Researches on Light in its Chemical Relations' (Falmouth, 1844) was mainly a history of photography; but the second edition (London, 1854) contained a large number of original experiments and new analyses of the solar ray.' Hunt had meanwhile also distinguished himself by experimenting on electrical phenomena in mineral veins, and by some papers on the application of the steam engine in pumping mines. In 1845 he received the government appointment of keeper of the mining records, an office which he discharged for thirty-seven years. In 1851 he was appointed lecturer on mechanical science in the Royal School of Mines, and began to collect and arrange statistics as to the products of British mines. In accordance with the report of a treasury commission Hunt's results were issued annually as a blue-book, 'Mineral Statistics of the United Kingdom,' from 1855 to 1884, and the series is still continued. After lecturing for two years on mechanical science Hunt succeeded to the chair of experimental physics at the School of Mines, which he resigned in order to give more time to the Mining Record Office. Hunt was occupied with the scientific work of the 1851 Exhibition, and drew up the 'Synopsis' and the 'Handbook' for it. He was also engaged in much of the preparatory work for several sections of the 1862 Exhibition, again compiling a handbook. At the Health Exhibition in 1884 Hunt received the diploma of honour for services rendered.

In 1851 appeared his 'Elementary Physics, giving accurate information of the chief facts in Physics, and explaining the experimental evidence without mathematical details.' Besides several papers on the 'Influence of Light on the Growth of Plants,' which were read before the British Association, Hunt drew up an almost exhaustive statement of the 