October 4rd Matthew Paul Moyle (Birth)
     

 

Chacewater – born Matthew Paul Moyle (1788 – 1880) was a physician, meteorologist and mineralogist. 

The grandson of Jonathan Hornblower (February 23rd), he was educated at Guy’s and St. Thomas’s Hospitals becoming a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1809, before moving to Helston where he practised for an incredible sixty nine years.  

The location of his practice on the edge of the Wendron mining district, with Helston being one of the stannary and coinage towns, and his regular attendance to injured miners drew his attention to the dangers of industry but he also realised that mines were a great source of scientific information.

Moyle continued his grandfather’s work on the rate of increase of temperature with depth in a mine and, with Robert Were Fox the Younger (July 25th), kept meticulous meteorological records for the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society (April 22nd) submitting papers to that society as well as to the journal ‘Annals of Philosophy’ and to the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall (February 11th).

Moyle also became fascinated by electricity and electrochemistry working on electrotyping, a new  form of engraving or forming metal parts with an irregular surface.

 

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