Moseley, Henry (1801-1872), mathematician and writer on mechanics, was born on 9 July 1801, the son of Dr William Willis Moseley, who kept a large private school at Newcastle under Lyme, and his wife, Margaret Jackson. He was educated at the grammar school in Newcastle under Lyme ...

The Congregationalists possess one of the finest groups of buildings in [Hanley], known as the Tabernacle Church, to which are attached a lecture hall, schools, vestries, and class rooms. The buildings, which are situated in High Street, are in the perpendicular style of architecture, erected with red brick and stone. In the centre rises an embattled tower, with octagonal stair turret and pyramidal spire, attaining a total height of 100 feet. The lecture hall, which is a very spacious apartment, has a richly traceried window of seven lights. Below the chapel is a large hall, around which are placed the various school and class rooms, and a library.

The Rev William Moseley, of Hanley, Staffordshire, has long been engaged in preparing a map to exhibit the geography and history of the Old Testament at one view, and he has now nearly completed his design. This map will contain all the places of any note mentioned in the writings of Moses and the prophets, the division of the Land of Israel into tribes, the distances of the principal places, and the travels of the children of Israel from Egypt into Canaan, with an historical account of each place.

The attention of astronomers having for years past been directed to measuring the altitudes of lunar mountains, I have frequently been surprised that no attempts have yet been made to ascertain the depth of those cavities which are so conspicuous on the surface of the moon. Under a conviction that determining the depths of such cavities will not be considered unworthy of notice, after the first astronomers of Europe have endeavoured to ascertain the heights of mountains on the moon's surface, I beg leave to submit to the examination of your readers the enclosed method of measuring the depths of lunar cavities.

Convinced that the known properties of matter present us with sufficient data for ascertaining the true law of cohesion, and that the ill success of a few, whose aim was rather to reconcile experiment with theories the favourite phantoms of their imaginations, than to deduce such theories from facts, did not stamp impossibility on the undertaking; I have been induced to commence an investigation of the subject, the result of which I beg leave to submit to the public through the medium of your valuable magazine.

... the Author has to acknowledge his important obligations to his friend Mr Challis, of Trinity College. He is indebted to that Gentleman for the Chapter (VII) on the general Equations of the Motion of Fluids, and the Appendix (A) on the Oscillations of a cylindrical Column of Air. In the former of these papers, Mr Challis has completely solved the general equation expressing the continuity of a moving fluid.

... to be delivered at The King's College, London, in the October Term of the year 1831 by Rev H Moseley, Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy. These Lectures require no introductory course of mathematical reading; the method of demonstration being exclusively experimental.

Moseley embarked upon a rigorous investigation of the statics of masonry arches and published his findings in 1833, 'On the theory of resistance in statics', and 'On a new principle in statics, called the principle of least pressures' ...

In a paper inserted in the 'Philosophical Magazine' for October, I have given a demonstration of the following theorem: "If there be a system of forces in equilibrium among which there enter the resistances of any number of fixed points, then are these resistances such that their sum is a minimum; each being considered a function of the coordinates of its point of application, taken with a positive sign, and subjected to the conditions imposed by the equilibrium of the whole.: I have also pointed out the steps by which this principle may be applied to the actual determination of the amount and direction of the resistance upon each point of the system in terms of the other forces which compose it. It is my object at present to give the actual solution of that particular but very important case, of the more general proposition, in which the forces and resistances of the system are all parallel to one another. The solution of this case is entirely free from that elaboration of analysis which besets the more general proposition.

The following work contains treatises on the sciences of Statics and Hydrostatics, comprising the whole theory of Equilibrium. It was intended as the first volume of a course of Natural Philosophy, for the use of those who have no knowledge of Mathematics, or who have made but little progress in their mathematical reading.

This work originally formed part of a course of Lectures delivered to the Class of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, at King's College. They were subsequently printed in the 'Magazine of Popular Science', and have since been revised by the Author, and adapted for publication in a separate volume, in the belief that it may serve the purposes of Popular Instruction.

This work is the first of a series, entitled 'Illustrations of Science', by Professors of King's College, London, to be published at intervals of three months, and continued until the circle of the Physical Sciences, and the Sciences of Observation, is embraced in it. The author has proposed to himself the development of that system of experimental facts and theoretical principles on which the whole superstructure of mechanical art may be considered to rest, and its introduction, under an available form, to the great business of practical education.

There seems little doubt that Moseley's major contribution to bridge construction related to the development of the wrought iron girder bridge. The appearance of his excellent book could hardly have been more timely: it was only a few years later that Robert Stephenson, I K Brunel and others with the cooperation of William Fairbairn, were to embark upon some spectacular railway bridge projects taking advantage of the merits of the then novel rolled iron plate and bars. The tubular or hollow iron girder, forerunner of the currently fashionable box girder, was one result.

Keeping an unlicensed house in Charlotte Street, Bloomsbury [Middlesex] for the reception of lunatics.

Acted out of ignorance when housed two lunatics in his house; then applied for licence but convicted before had time to comply with conditions of licence; has wife and seven children dependent on him; sale of house will cover his debts; willing to enter into recognisance; elderly age; committed on false information that house was intended for dangerous lunatics not harmless ones; all magistrates involved recommend reducing sentence further from 6 to 3 months.

When I visited the College in November, I found [the students] busily employed in quarrying the stone of which an abundant supply is found on the premises, they had made some progress with the oak carvings, and the stonework of a very beautiful window was nearly completed. Nothing could be more lively or interesting than the scene presented by the grounds and workshops during the intervals of study. In one place the foundations of the structure were being dug out; in another the stone was quarried. In the workshops I found carpenters, turners, carvers in oak and blacksmiths, plying their several trades; and, in a shed, a group of stone-cutters carving with great success the arch mouldings, mullions, and lights of a decorated window.

... in 1853 he was presented to a residential canonry in Bristol Cathedral; in 1854 he became vicar of Olveston, Gloucestershire, and he was appointed chaplain in ordinary to Queen Victoria in 1855.