Norwich, Norfolk, UK
Church of St Peter Parmentergate, situated on King Street. Redundant since 1981 and now in the care of The Norwich Historic Churches Trust. It is now used as a martial arts centre.
Memorial for Peter Bilby †1787. Marble. Nave south, besides the door.
The description of Bilby in the inscription as ‘known as a Mathematician. He was friendly, compassionate and charitable’ is born out by his foundation in 1754 of a society ‘for men of original minds, and small incomes, for their improvement in mathematics and Experimental Philosophy.’ The society was one of a number in this period aimed at improving knowledge and politeness. One distinguished, but extremely impolite and unpolished, member of the society had been the Norwich freethinker and eccentric, John Fransham (130-1810).
Angela Dain, ‘An Enlightened and Polite Society’ in Carole Rawcliffe and Richard Wilson eds., Norwich since 1550, London and New York, 2004, pp. 199-200; Wikipedia, ‘John Fransham’.
Norwich, Norfolk, UK
Church of St Peter Parmentergate, situated on King Street. Redundant since 1981 and now in the care of The Norwich Historic Churches Trust. It is now used as a martial arts centre.
Memorial for Peter Bilby †1787. Marble. Nave south, besides the door.
The description of Bilby in the inscription as ‘known as a Mathematician. He was friendly, compassionate and charitable’ is born out by his foundation in 1754 of a society ‘for men of original minds, and small incomes, for their improvement in mathematics and Experimental Philosophy.’ The society was one of a number in this period aimed at improving knowledge and politeness. One distinguished, but extremely impolite and unpolished, member of the society had been the Norwich freethinker and eccentric, John Fransham (130-1810).
Angela Dain, ‘An Enlightened and Polite Society’ in Carole Rawcliffe and Richard Wilson eds., Norwich since 1550, London and New York, 2004, pp. 199-200; Wikipedia, ‘John Fransham’.