3-034-739 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The late Mr. Babbage, 1871. Engraving from a photograph by M. Claudet of '...the eminent mathematician and inventor of "the calculating machine"...[He] conceived the notion, which had, indeed, been thought of by Pascal and other French geometricians, that certain arithmetical operations could be performed by mechanism...Mr. Babbage first publicly broached his ideas on the subject in a letter to Sir Humphry Davy...The Treasury took up the proposal and granted Mr. Babbage £1500 to make the machine. It was commenced in 1823, and money was from time to time voted in payment of material and labour. Five years passed, and the Government grew anxious...Mr. Babbage informed the Government that his own plans had become greatly enlarged, and he proposed the construction of another machine, the analytical engine, which included the difference engine and much more...The engine, with the drawings of the machinery constructed and not constructed, and of other contrivances, extending to some 400 or 500 drawings and plans, was presented, in 1843, to King's College Museum. [In 1836] he wrote the Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, in which he showed how mathematics, as well as the physical sciences, may afford proof of the Divine design in creation'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.