Thomas Fowler

THOMAS FOWLER

of Great Torrington North Devon

by
John McKay
and
Pamela Vass

Abstract
In 1823 Thomas Fowler patented the first convective heating system. This was the precursor to the modern central heating system. In 1840 he invented a calculating machine, built in wood, that was much admired by his contemporaries Augustus De Morgan, Charles Babbage, George Airey and many others. The machine used a tertiary calculating model.

Thomas Fowler was born in 1777 In Great Torrington of humble parentage, his father being a cooper. Very little is known about his early life but from an account written by his son, Hugh Fowler, it quickly becomes evident that Thomas was an exceptional young man.

“He received the barest rudiments of education—not more, certainly, than the three R’s—at a small school here. He was apprenticed at an early age—about 13 or 14 I think) to a fellmonger. It was at this time that his taste for mathematical study began to develop itself. I have here, and I shall always retain as an heirloom, the very book, Ward’s Mathematician’s Guide, the only one on the subject which he for a long time possessed. This book, as is usually the case with the homo unius libri, he thoroughly mastered, and that without the slightest help from anyone. No one could have been more entirely self taught than he was. Mathematicians in those days were very scarce in this part of Devon, and probably elsewhere, even in the great centres of education. The country was then lying under the incubus of the French war, and neither this nor any other of the arts of peace could possibly flourish as they have done since. Few people, if any, of this town or neighbourhood knew, or if they knew, cared, that there was in their midst ‘a wondrous boy’ who, absolutely self taught, after his hard day's work among sheepskins spent half the night poring over his mathematics, until he had gone as far as to master Saunderson’s fluxions, the name by which the method of the differntial calculus, as far it was then known, was designated. There was no one, alas! to take him by the hand, and help him to carry on his studies at Cambridge, where alone such talent as he undoubtedly possessed could either have been fully developed or adequately rewarded; for that he would have distinguished himself at the University there can, I think, be no question. So he was left, without help or sympathy, to his solitary studies.”

In 1828 he patented the Thermosiphon (British Patent no 5711). This was to become the modern central heating system. A heating system based on a design by Thomas Fowler was installed at Bicton, then part of the Rolle Estate and received great acclaim in the Gardener’s Magazine of 1829.

"Mr Fowler has had the good fortune to hit on the idea that water may be heated and made to circulate through a siphon, as well as through horizontal pipes, or by force through pipes in any direction; provided always, that the height of the siphon be not greater than to be counter-balanced by the pressure of the atmosphere; say not greater than 30 feet. Any person might have discovered the same thing by reflection, or in answer to the question asked; but we are not aware that the idea has ocurred, either to the original inventor of the hot-water system, Bonnemain; to its introducers into England, Bolton and Watt; to its subsequent introducer; Chabbanes; to Count Romford; and to its reinventors, or English inventors, Atkinson and Bacon; or to any to any of the numerous engineers now occupied in applying this mode of heating." The system is also dscribed in a pamphlet written by Fowler which he dedicates to John Sloley

The Thermosiphon: a detail from the memorial widow

Esq. of Great Torrington who used the system in his vinery.
The patent laws of the time were flawed. By introducing any small change to the original design, the resulting new version would not be covered by the original patent. This meant that others could steal his invention with impunity, which of course they duly did. His son writes in 1875:

"Unfortunately the invention was soon pirated in all directions. The only remedy was costly legal proceedings, but even if he had had the means to conduct them, success would have been doubtful." Fowler became very embittered by this experience and this had an unfortunate side-effect on the history of computer science.
(It is worth noting that the Romans had a convective heating system called the Hypocaust . However, there are fundamental differences. Firstly, heat was conveyed by hot air and secondly, it was not a closed system. The hot air, having past through channels under the floor, then was allowed to escape into the atmosphere.)

During the 1830's Thomas Fowler rose to become the sole manager and partner of the only bank in the town, Messrs Loveband & Co. He also became treasurer of the Poor Law Union. The tedious nature of the calculation of payments for each of the parishes, which was one of his responsibilities, led him to attempt to automate the calculations by the use of tables. Fowler's solution was typically brilliant and led, in 1838, to Fowler's "Tables for Facilitating Arithmetical Calculations".
The tables used a method based on Fowler's realization that "any number might be produced by a combination of the powers of 2 or 3". The first section of the booklet is the Binary Table, or a table of indices of the number 2 from 1 to 130048. The second section is the Ternary Table, or a table of the indices of the power of the number 3 from 1 to 3985607.

Soon after he had devised the tables he used the same ideas to build a mechanical calculating machine . This was exhibited at Kings College London in May 1840. In a letter to Airy not long after the exhibition at Kings College Fowler writes:

"This Machine was constructed entirely with my own hands (principally in Wood) with the utmost regard to economy and merely to put my Ideas of this mode of calculation into some form of Action; It is about 6 feet long , One foot deep and three feet wide., In Brass & Iron it might be constructed so as not to occupy a space much large than a good portable writing desk and with powers such as I have described." The then Astronomer Royal, Professor George Airy was to promote Fowler's invention to a gathering of the British Society for the Advancment of Science in September 1840. In the minutes of that meeting we read:

The Calculating Machine:
an "artist's impression"

Fowler writes to Airy:

Charles Babbage, Augustus De Morgan, George Airy and many other leading mathematicians of the day witnessed his machine in operation. These names have become beacons in the history of science yet nowhere will you find reference to Thomas Fowler. Airy asked that he produce plans of his machine but Fowler, recalling his experience with the Thermosiphon, refused to publish his design.

The machine was superior in many respects to Babbage’s calculating machine, the Difference Engine, generally regarded as the first digital computer. Fowler’s machine anticipated the modern computer in its design by using a tertiary calculating method. This is in contrast to Babbage’s machine which performed a decimal calculation, an approach which made his machine very complicated. The government of the day became increasingly disillusioned by the money they were having to pour into its development. So much so that the government refused to even look at Fowler’s machine. Had Thomas Fowler published his design he would no doubt have won the support of many leading mathematicians of the time. Unfortunately, it took several decades before his approach was re-invented and in the mean time his name had slipped into obscurity.

In Doron Swade’s paper on Charles Babbage he talks of how, in 1971, Maurice Wilkes, published an article ‘Babbage as a Computer Pioneer’. This was the first authoritative evaluation of Babbage’s contribution in modern times. In it he accuses Babbage of not of pioneering the modern computer age but of delaying it. He argues that Babbage became associated with failure and that this discouraged others from advancing the cause of automatic computation. ( Maurice Wilkes was a distinguished pioneer of modern electronic computers, who led the post-war team at Cambridge that built the first practical electronic computer, the EDAC.)
The Rev. Hugh Fowler writes:

"The government of the day refused even to look at my father’s machine on the express ground that they had spent such large sums, with no satisfactory result, on Babbage’s ‘Calculating Engine’, as he termed it"
Thomas spent his whole life in Torrington. He married Mary Copp in 1813. They had at least eleven children (I keep on finding more!) but, as was common at this time, several died before reaching adulthood; the average life-expectancy was only 40 in the 1830’s. The genius of Thomas Fowler is evident in some of his children, particularly his daughter Caroline, who was illustrating books by the age of eight.

Brief Chronology

1777	Thomas Fowler born. Son of a cooper. Little education. Self taught with the only book 'Ward’s Mathematician’s Guide’ - John Ward’s Young Mathematician’s Guide, 1st Edition 1707, 12th Edition 1771 (Shelf No: 1509/1167)
1790	Apprenticed at the age of 13 to a fellmonger
1800(~)	Became a Printer and Bookseller
1813	Married Mary Copp in St. Michael’s on 21 February
1822	Published Field Sports as followed by the Natives of India by Daniel Johnson, Surgeon H.E.I.C.S (Shelf No: 1040F8), 1827 second edition.
1828	Patented the Thermosiphon
1829	Installed a heating system at Bicton for the Rt. Hon. Lord Rolle. Mr Coldridge, ironmonger, directed the works.
1835(~)	Treasurer of the Poor Law Union
1835(~)	Became partner in the bank Messrs Loveband & Co. (formerly Cooke & Co until 1821) 1836 Joint Stock Banking Act allowing banks to print bank notes if less than six partners.
1838	Published Tables for Arithmetical Calculations (Shelf No: 712F48 in British Library - only copy!)
1840	Calculating Machine first constructed
1842	Calculating Machine improved
1843	Thomas Fowler died on March 31 of 'Dropsy of the Chest'.
1843	Messrs. Lovebrand & Co was merged with the National Provincial Bank.
1864(~)	Stained Glass window in south transept of St Michael’s Church, Torrington in his memory. Commissioned by his son Hugh, probably during the restoration of the church.
1875	Read biography written by his son Rev Hugh Fowler to Devonshire Association August, North Devon Journal published the biography.

Historical Context
The Napoleonic Wars had come to a conclusion in 1815. The release from this yoke precipitated calls for social change. It is a time of great ferment in which many social changes are taking place. Much of this is catalysed by a new feeling of intellectual freedom which expresses itself in an explosion of scientific and engineering advances that themselves change the face of society.
Science had only recently become a profession, William Whewell coined the term ‘scientist’ in 1833.

Other Computing Machines

1623	Whilhelm Schickard	Calculating Clock.(6 digit machine)
1644	Blaise Pascal	Pascaline (5-digit machine)
1668	Sir Samuel Morland	Money adder
1674	Gottfried von Leibniz	Stepped Reckoner
1775	Earl Stanhope	multiplying calculator (like Leibniz's.)
1770	Mathieus Hahn	multiplying calculator.
1786	J. H. Mueller	Difference engine (conceived idea)
1820	Thomas de Colmar	Arithmometer I
1822	Charles Babbage	Difference Engine
1832	Charles Babbage	Prototype built
1834	Charles Babbage	Analytical Engine
1840	Thomas Fowler	Calculating Machine
1842	Scheutz	3rd-order difference engine
1849	Charles Babbage	better & simpler difference engine
1853	Scheutze	Tabulating Machine
1878	Ramon Verea	an internal multiplication table
1885	Frank S Baldwin	Arithmometer II
1886	Dorr E. Felt	Comptometer
1892	William S. Burroughs	more robust Comptometer

The Authors may be contacted through pvass@cz54.demon.co.uk .

This paper is updated from time to time and may be read in its latest version at http://www.eddystone.com/fowler , where there are also links to many other pages on related topics.