In 1820, having previously announced through a friend that he had determined the principle of gravitation (Phil. Mag. August 1819, p. 310), he offered to the Royal Society a paper entitled ‘A Mathematical Inquiry into the Causes, Laws, and Principal Phenomena of Heat, Gases, Gravitations, &c.’ It was refused. He thereupon published in the ‘Annals of Philosophy’ (new ser. i. 273, 340, 401) a letter to Davies Gilbert [q. v.], treasurer of the Royal Society, on the physical constitution of the universe. This formed a preface to the rejected paper, which was published in four subsequent numbers of the ‘Annals.’ A fierce controversy with the Royal Society followed. At the close of 1820 he settled as a mathematical tutor at Cranford, Middlesex. In 1821 he wrote on the ‘Theory of Evaporation’ in the ‘Annals of Philosophy’ for April and May. In 1822 his papers in that journal relate principally to his grievances against the Royal Society. His ‘Tables of Temperature and a Mathematical Development of the Causes and Laws of the Phenomena which have been adduced in support of the hypothesis of Calorific Capacity and Latent Heat’ (new ser. iii. 16) was controverted by Tredgold. He also wrote ‘Remarks on Dr. Thomson's Paper on the Influence of Humidity in modifying the Specific Gravity of Gases’ (new ser. iii. 419). He became acquainted with Brougham, who invited him to correct his mathematical works, induced him to write for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge a treatise on the ‘Differential and Integral Calculus,’ and held out to him hopes of the appointment of professor of mathematics in the university of London. Herapath eventually declined to deliver the treatise, and a quarrel ensued. In 1832 he gave up teaching, and removed to Kensington.
On the formation of the Eastern Counties Railway Company Herapath became connected with the railway interest, and in 1836 succeeded as part proprietor and manager of the ‘Railway Magazine.’ Under his editorship a new series was commenced called ‘The Railway Magazine and Annals of Science,’ which continued to appear monthly from March 1836 to 1839, forming six octavo volumes. Herapath ultimately acquired the sole proprietorship. It is now published in quarto as a weekly paper entitled ‘Herapath's Railway and Commercial Journal.’ After resigning the active management of his paper to his son, Edwin John, Herapath once more devoted himself to mathematics, and published two volumes of ‘Mathematical Physics; or the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy: with a Development of the Causes of Heat, Gaseous Elasticity, Gravitation,’ &c., 8vo, London, 1847. He contemplated issuing a third volume, but made little progress with it. He died on 24 Feb. 1868 at Catford Bridge, Lewisham, and was buried in Norwood cemetery. He was a first cousin of William Herapath [q. v.]
[Herapath's Railway Journal, 4to ser. xxx. 234, 275–8, 309, 334; Gent. Mag. 4th ser. v. 544–5.]
HERAPATH, WILLIAM (1796–1868), analytical chemist, was born at Bristol in 1796. His father was a maltster in St. Philip's parish, and after his death Herapath succeeded to the business. He soon gave it up in order to study chemistry. He was one of the founders of the Chemical Society of London, of which he was a fellow, and also of the Bristol Medical School, of which he became professor of chemistry and toxicology on its first opening in 1828. On 13 April 1835, at the trial of a woman named Burdock for poisoning by arsenic her lodger, Mrs. Clara Ann Smith, at Bristol, Herapath was examined for the prosecution, and gained considerable reputation by his analysis. He was consequently retained in many other important criminal and civil trials, and was frequently opposed to Professor Alfred Swaine Taylor, notably in the case of William Palmer of Rugeley in 1856, when he was a witness for the defence. He was severely handled by the attorney-general, Sir A. Cockburn, who denounced him as a ‘thoroughgoing partisan.’ In politics Herapath was once an ardent radical. At the time of the reform agitation of 1831 he was president of the Bristol Political Union, and exerted himself to quell the rioting of October 1831. On the passing of the Municipal Reform Act Herapath became a member of the town council, and ultimately a justice of the peace. His radicalism became cold, and he consequently lost his seat on the council. He died on 13 Feb. 1868. His eldest son, William Bird Herapath, M.D., F.R.S., a distinguished toxicologist, died on 12 Oct. of the same year. Herapath wrote ‘instructions’ for Clifton Cleve's ‘Hints on Domestic Sanitation,’ 12mo, London, 1848; and ‘A Few Words on the Bristol and Clifton Hot-wells. Together with an Analysis of the Spa,’ 12mo, Bristol (1854?), which was subsequently embodied in the ‘Handbook for Visitors to the Bristol and Clifton Hotwells,’ 12mo, Bristol (1865?).
[Western Daily Press, 15 Feb. 1868; Bristol Times and Mirror, 15 Feb. 1868; Herapath's Railway Journal, 22 Feb. 1868, p. 205; Chemical News, 1868, pp. 97, 213; Gent. Mag. 4th ser. v. 404, 544; Nicholls and Taylor's Bristol Past and Present, iii. 326, 329.]
