On February 18th 1737 there was an eclipse of the Sun visible from Warwickshire. It was one of an extraordinary series of British eclipses which occurred in the eighteenth century, and inspired a generation of astronomers and cartographers to produce ever-more elaborate charts and maps of the eclipse tracks.
Henry Beighton, surveyor, engineer, draftsman and mathematician, drew one such chart to illustrate the 1737 eclipse. I found this chart in the papers of Roger Newdigate, a young aristocrat who lived in Arbury Hall,
I use the story of these two fascinating historical figures, and the map that connects them, to trace the flowering of mathematical talent in the wake of
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