by Benjamin Williamson, rev. David Huddleston
© Oxford University Press 2004 All rights reserved
Graves, Charles (1812-1899), bishop of Limerick and mathematician, was born in Dublin on 6 November 1812. He was the youngest son of John Crosbie Graves, chief police magistrate of Dublin, and of Helena, daughter of the Revd Charles Perceval of Templehouse, co. Sligo. He went to a private school near Bristol and then, in 1829, entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he was elected to a foundation scholarship in 1832, a distinction then given only to those proficient in classics. Intended originally for the army, he became an expert swordsman and rider, played cricket for his university, and later in life did much boating and fly-fishing. In 1835 he graduated as the first senior moderator and gold medallist in mathematics and mathematical physics. In 1836 he obtained the rare distinction of election to a fellowship on a first candidature. In 1840 he married Selina (d. 1873), daughter of Dr John Cheyne; they had five sons, including the poet and educationist Alfred Perceval Graves, and four daughters.
In 1841 Graves made an important mathematical contribution when he published On the General Properties of Cones of the Second Degree and of Spherical Conics, translated from the work by Chasles. In the copious notes appended to this translation he gave a number of new theorems of much interest, which he arrived at principally by Chasles's methods. The most remarkable of these was his extension of the construction of an ellipse, as traced by a pencil which strains a thread passing over two fixed points, by substituting for the points a given ellipse, with which he showed that the locus is confocal. This he deduced from the more general theorem in spherical conics that if two spherical conics have the same cyclic arcs, then any arc touching the inner curve will cut off from the outer a segment of constant area. Bertrand's famous treatise on integral calculus (1864) attributed Graves's theorem to Chasles, who arrived at it later by an independent investigation. In a long appendix to the volume Graves gave a method of treating curves on a sphere corresponding to the Cartesian method on the plane, arcs of great circles taking the place of right lines. This work was greatly admired by Sylvester and other distinguished mathematicians, but their high expectations of its usefulness were never fulfilled.
This was Graves's only published mathematical work. His other pieces of original research were either embedded in his lectures as professor or in papers read before, and published by, the Royal Irish Academy. During this period Sir William Hamilton, McCullagh, and Humphry Lloyd were also members, and the meetings were often used to announce the results of scientific investigation and research undertaken at the University of Dublin.
While Hamilton was explaining in a series of communications his new calculus of quaternions, several contemporary mathematicians simultaneously came up with more or less analogous systems which also involved new imaginaries. Graves proposed a system of algebraic triplets of this kind, but it never had the importance of his work on quaternions, being a mathematical curiosity rather than a valuable working method.
Other papers by Graves, published by the Royal Irish Academy, related to the theory of differential equations, to the equation of Laplace's functions, and to curves traced on surfaces of the second degree. He also gave some important applications of the calculus of operations to the calculus of variations, and arrived at an elegant and simple demonstration, by the operational method, of Jacobi's celebrated theorem for distinguishing between maxima and minima values in the application of the calculus of variations.
Graves's scholarly interests were linguistic as well as mathematical, and he became particularly interested by the ogham inscriptions, an alphabet of twenty characters used in ancient Britain and Ireland. He made a project out of applying to them the accepted methods for the decipherment of writings, known or presumed to be alphabetical, and thus gave readings and renderings of a number of the inscriptions on cromlechs and other stone monuments. He also published some Suggestions on the Brehon laws in 1851, which brought before the government the importance of having these old Irish laws edited and translated by competent scholars. Graves was appointed to the Historic Manuscripts Commission, which helped bring this into effect.
In 1843 Graves was chosen professor of mathematics in the University of Dublin in succession to James McCullagh. He was made dean of the Chapel Royal, Dublin, in 1860 and dean of Clonfert in 1864. He was elevated to the bishopric of Limerick, Ardfert, and Aghadoe in 1866, being one of the last bishops appointed before the disestablishment of the Irish church. He held that office for thirty-three years until his death.
In 1837, having been elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy, Graves successively filled the offices of secretary of the council and secretary of the academy, and served as president from 1861 to 1866. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1880, and was given the honorary degree of DCL by the University of Oxford in 1881. He died at Portobello House, Dublin, on 17 July 1899, and was buried in Limerick Cathedral churchyard. A monument to his memory was placed in the cathedral bearing a Latin inscription translated into English and Irish.
Graves's work was characterized by symmetry and elegance, of both method and results, which matched his literary and artistic tastes. His breadth of learning meant that he was as comfortable with mathematical theories as he was with ecclesiastical affairs. He was the last of the great antiquarian scholar-bishops. His broad-mindedness, dignity, and personal charm made him an agreeable companion. His friends included Wordsworth, Mendelssohn, Huxley, Froude, and Matthew Arnold. However, he was not a great preacher, and as he grew older the diocesan business was increasingly devolved to other clergy. Nevertheless, his moderate approach to church affairs and his long experience made him a highly valued member of the house of bishops. Yet it is his mathematical and antiquarian endeavours which probably provide his most important legacy.
BENJAMIN WILLIAMSON, rev. DAVID HUDDLESTON
Sources
The Times (18 July 1899), 10
WW (1898)
J. B. Leslie, Ardfert and Aghadoe clergy and parishes (1940)
H. Cotton, Fasti ecclesiae Hibernicae, 6 (1878)
J. B. Leslie, ed., Clergy of Connor: from Patrician times to the present day (1993)
H. E. Patton, Fifty years of disestablishment (1922)
R. B. McDowell, The Church of Ireland, 1869-1969 (1975)
CGPLA Ire. (1899)
Archives
Representative Church Body Library, Dublin, corresp. and papers
Royal Irish Acad., papers relating to Irish antiquities
TCD, corresp. and papers | Bodl. Oxf., corresp. with Lord Kimberley
Limerick University Library, letters to Lord Dunraven
NL Ire., letters to Lord Emly
NL Ire., Monsell MSS
PRO NIre., Wyndham-Quin MSS
TCD, corresp. with Sir W. R. Hamilton
Likenesses
J. H. Foley, marble relief, NG Ire.
Lafayette, photograph, repro. in ILN (29 July 1899)
S. Purser, portrait, Royal Irish Acad.
Wealth at death
£45,402 16s. 5d.: resworn probate, Feb 1900, CGPLA Eng. & Wales (1899)
£4388 15s. 0d.: probate, 7 Nov 1899, CGPLA Ire.
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