Abstract
THE death of Mr. Frank Castle on Aug. 4, at seventy-one years of age, will be regretted by a wide circle of friends and by thousands of artisan students who have profited by the courses of instruction in his text-books of practical mathematics and related subjects. Mr. Castle was born at Dewsbury, Yorkshire, and served his apprentice-ship with a firm of engineers and tool-makers there. After working at his trade and introducing several improvements in grinding machinery, he became in 1883 an assistant in the mechanics and mathematics division of what is now the Royal College of Science, South Kensington, and he occupied that position for twenty-six years. Hundreds of students who passed through the College during that period will remember his retiring nature and are grateful for the assistance he was ever ready to afford them on either the mechanical or the mathematical side of their work. When Prof. John Perry, who was appointed professor of mathematics and mechanics at the College in 1896, was carrying on there his campaign for the teaching of everyday or practical mathematics, Mr. Castle became an enthusiastic exponent of the reform, and in quick succession produced his “Practical Mathematics for Technical Students”(1899), “Practical Mathematics for Beginners”(1901), and “A Manual of Practical Mathematics”(1903), all of which became standard text-books and remain so even now. He was the author also of “Machine Construction and Drawing,”“A Manual of Machine Design,” and several useful books of mathematical tables. His success as an author and a teacher was due to his early workshop training and an instinctive appreciation of the difficulties of elementary students. He was for many years lecturer in mathematics at the Morley College, London, and at the time of his death was lecturer in practical mathematics, machine construction and drawing, building construction and applied mechanics at the Municipal Technical Institute, Eastbourne.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mr. Frank Castle. Nature 122, 248 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/122248b0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/122248b0