William George Horner - Family Life

Family Life

The eldest son of the Rev. William Horner, a Wesleyan minister, was born in Bristol. He was educated at Kingswood School, a Wesleyan foundation near Bristol, and at the age of sixteen became an assistant master there. In four years he rose to be head master (1806), but left in 1809, setting up his own school, The Classical Seminary, at Grosvenor Place, Bath, which he kept until he died there 22 September 1837. He and his wife Sarah (1787?--1864) had six daughters and two sons. One of the sons, another William Horner, continued to run the school. He, too, had a large family; the youngest were twins, Charles and Francis John Horner (1852–1887). Francis Horner matriculated at St. John's College, Cambridge in 1872, taking out a BA in 1876 and an MA in 1883. He became a lecturer in mathematics at the University in Sydney, where he died after only a few years - he had been advised to try a change of climate on account of tuberculosis.

A longer association with Australia comes through the issue of Horner's daughter Mary, which retained the name `Horner' through several generations. Mary's son Joseph Horner Fletcher, was a Methodist school headmaster in New Zealand and then Australia. Neville Horner Fletcher (1930- ), FTSE, FAA, is a physicist at the Australian National University.

On Horner's death in 1837, Sarah Horner lived with another daughter, Charlotte Augusta (1819?--1863; m. 1849)), and son-in-law, John Lamble Harrison (1820?--1877)), and their daughters, Charlotte Sarah (b. 1852) and Elizabeth Caroline (b. 1856), at 33, Grovesnor Place, Bath.

Horner's youngest brother, Joseph Horner, was also an assistant master at Kingswood School, but in 1834 matriculated as a mature student at Clare College, Cambridge, standing twelfth Wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos in 1838 (the same year, John Thompson Exley, the son of W. G. Horner's associate Thomas Exley, stood twenty-third). Joseph Horner was a Fellow of Clare College and then vicar of Everton with Tetsworth from 1839 until his death in 1875. He, too, published in mathematics.

Other brothers were Thomas Horner, who died young; John Horner, a Wesleyan minister in India; and James Horner, cabinet maker of Bath. According to Horner, John Horner was the first missionary to come out of Kingswood School: he translated Bel and the Dragon into Marathi and his son, Horner's nephew, again John Horner, was tutor to the children of servants in the Sovereign's Household.