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  of original vocabularies of five west Caucasian languages—Georgian, Mingrelian, Lazian, Svanetian, and Apkhazian (Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, 1877, pp. 145–56). Up to that time no contribution on these languages had appeared in English. On 14 Oct. 1891 Peacock was appointed consul-general at Odessa, but had only been in residence a few weeks when he died, as is reported, of Caucasian fever, the marshes which surround Batoum rendering that town very unhealthy. His death occurred on 23 May 1892 at Odessa, and he was buried in the British cemetery there. He left a widow, Tatiana née Bakunin, a Russian lady, and six children, three sons and three daughters. They were residing in 1894 at Diadino, in the government of Iver, in Russia. Peacock was a man of rare attainments, and left little by which the world can form a judgment of his powers. According to the ‘Levantine Herald,’ as quoted by the ‘Athenæum,’ he wrote a book on the Caucasus which was not approved by the foreign office, but his widow promised to publish it. It has not yet appeared. Travellers in the Caucasus found a hearty welcome at his house at Batoum.



PEACOCK, GEORGE (1791–1858), mathematician and dean of Ely, was fifth and youngest son of Thomas Peacock, for fifty years perpetual curate of Denton in the parish of Gainford, near Darlington. George was born on 9 April 1791 at Thornton Hall, Denton, where his father resided and kept a school. As a boy he was more remarkable for a bold spirit and active habits of body than for love of study. In January 1808, when nearly seventeen years old, he was sent to the school at Richmond kept by the Rev. James Tate, formerly fellow of Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge, then at the height of its reputation. There his talents speedily developed. His schoolfellow and friend, Charles (afterwards archdeacon) Musgrave, bears witness that Peacock ‘made himself a sound scholar in Greek and Latin, and in this branch of study, as well as in mathematics, was looked up to as an authority by his fellow-students’ (Gent. Mag. 1859, pt. i. p. 426). He always frankly acknowledged his obligations to Tate, and dedicated his ‘Algebra’ to him. In the summer of 1809, before proceeding to Cambridge, he read with John Brass of Richmond, then an undergraduate, and afterwards fellow, of Trinity College.

Peacock's name was entered on the books of Trinity College as a sizar on 21 Feb. 1809, and he came into residence in the following October. He was elected scholar of his college on 12 April 1812. In the summer of that year he read mathematics at Lowestoft with [q. v.], with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship. He graduated B.A. in 1813, being placed second wrangler in the mathematical tripos, and he afterwards gained the second Smith's prize. In both examinations Sir [q. v.] was first. In the following year (1814) Peacock was elected fellow of his college. He proceeded M.A. in 1816.

Peacock was appointed a lecturer in mathematics in Trinity College in 1815, and in 1823 tutor, jointly with [q. v.] From 1835 till 1839 he was sole tutor. His success both as a lecturer and a tutor was very great. He possessed great knowledge, a clear intellect, and a power of luminous exposition, joined to a gift of sympathy with, and interest in, his pupils, which, at that time, was not cultivated in the university. His friend and former pupil, Canon Thompson, said of him, in the sermon which he preached in Ely Cathedral on the Sunday after his funeral, that ‘his inspection of his pupils was not minute, far less vexatious, but it was always effectual. … His insight into character was remarkable, and, though he had decided preferences in favour of certain qualities and pursuits over others, he was tolerant of tendencies with which he could not sympathise, and would look on the more harmless vagaries of young and active minds rather as an amused spectator than as a stern censor and critic’ (, Funeral Sermon, p. 13).

In politics a whig, Peacock was a zealous advocate for progress and reform in the university. While still an undergraduate he became convinced of the necessity of introducing analytical methods and the differential notation into the mathematical course. This had been already suggested without effect by [q. v.] Peacock, Herschel, and Babbage used to breakfast together on Sunday mornings, and as early as 1812 agreed to found an analytical society, so as ‘to leave the world better than they found it’ (Life of J. F. W. Herschel, p. 263). This society hired a meeting-room, open daily; held meetings, read papers, discussed them, and published a volume of transactions. A translation of Lacroix's work on the ‘Differential and Integral Calculus’ was published at Cambridge in 1816, with appendices or ‘notes,’ as they are called, the first twelve of