Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/264

Mudge had a scheme of his own for finding the longitude by lunar tables which disposed him to apply ultra-rigorous tests to the chronometers.

In June 1791 Mudge's son presented to the board of longitude a memorial, stating that although his father's timekeepers during the time of the public trial had not been adjudged to go within the limits prescribed by the Act, yet as they were superior to any hitherto invented, and were constructed on such principles as would render them permanently useful, the board would be justified in exercising the powers vested in them, and giving him some re ward in recognition of his labours. The memorial proving unsuccessful, he carried a petition to the same effect to the House of Commons, and a committee was appointed, on which served Pitt, Wyndham, Bathurst, and Lord Minto, to consider the value of Mudge's invention. The committee, having been assisted by Atwood and other eminent watchmakers and men of science, finally voted Mudge the sum of 2,500l. He died two years after receiving this reward at the house of his elder son, Thomas, at Newington Place, Surrey, on 14 Nov. 1794. He had married in 1757 Abigail Hopkins, a native of Oxford, who died in 1789, leaving two sons. The younger son, John (1763-1847), was, on the recommendation of Queen Charlotte, presented to the vicarage of Brampford-Speke, near Exeter, by the lord chancellor in 1791. The elder son, (1760-1843), born on 16 Dec. 1760, was called to the bar from Lincoln's Inn, practised as a barrister in London, and successfully advocated his father's claims to a government reward. For some time he conducted a manufacture of chronometers upon his father's plan, and gave some account of the enterprise in 'A Description, with Plates, of the Timekeepers invented by the late Mr. Thomas Mudge, to which is prefixed a Narrative by his Son of the Measures taken to give Effect to the Invention since the Reward bestowed upon it by the House of Commons in 1793 ; a Republication of a Tract by the late Mr. Mudge on the Improvement of Timekeepers ; and a Series of Letters written by him to his Excellency Count Bruhl between the years 1773 and 1787,' London, 1799. He supplied some chronometers to the admiralty and also to the Spanish and Danish governments ; but the venture obtained no permanent measure of success. He was also a correspondent of James Northcote [q. v.], to whom he sent a copy of verses on the ' High Rocks ' at Tunbridge Wells, and other trifles. He died at Chilcompton, near Bath, on 10 Nov. 1843. By his wife, Elizabeth Kingdon, sister of Lady Brunei, the mother of the famous engineer, he had several children. A fine portrait of Thomas Mudge the elder, belonging to Mrs. Robert Mudge, was painted for the Count de Bruhl by Nathaniel Dance, and was engraved by Charles Townley and L. Schiavonetti. It shows a face which is remarkable for its look of patient intelligence and integrity.

 MUDGE, WILLIAM (1762–1820), major-general royal artillery, son of Dr. John Mudge [q. v.] of Plymouth, by his second wife, and grandson of the Rev. Zachariah Mudge [q. v.], was born at Plymouth on 1 Dec. 1762. He entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich on 17 April 1777, and while he was there his godfather, Dr. Johnson [q. v.], paid him a visit, and gave him a guinea and a book. On 9 July 1779 he received a commission as second lieutenant in the royal artillery, and was sent to South Carolina to join the army under Lord Cornwallis. He was promoted first lieutenant on 16 May 1781. On his return home he was stationed at the Tower of London, and studied the higher mathematics under Dr. Hutton, amusing himself in his spare time with the construction of clocks. He became a first-rate mathematician, and was appointed in 1791 to the ordnance trigonometrical survey, of which he was promoted to be director on the death of Colonel Williams in 1798. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society the same year. He was promoted brevet major on 25 Sept. 1801, regimental major 14 Sept. 1803, and lieutenant-colonel 20 July 1804. While at the head of the survey he resided first, until 1808, at the Tower of London, and afterwards at 4 Holles Street, London, which he purchased; there he resided for the rest of his life. He was appointed in addition and quite unexpectedly, on 29 July 1809, by Lord Chatham, to be lieutenant-governor of the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich; and when in 1810 it was decided to move the Indian cadets to Addiscombe, Mudge was appointed public examiner to the new college. He took great pains to see that both the Woolwich and the Addiscombe cadets were well trained in surveying and 