| Authorised form of name | Donkin; William Fishburn (1814 - 1869); astronomer and mathematician |
| Dates | 1814 - 1869 |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | Bishop Burton, Yorkshire, England |
| Date of birth | 15 February 1814 |
| Place of death | Broad Street, Oxford, England |
| Date of death | 15 November 1869 |
| Dates and places | Burial: St Peter-in-the-East, Oxford, England (19 November 1869). |
| Occupation | astronomer and mathematician |
| Research field | Mathematics |
| Astronomy |
| Activity | Education:
St Peter's School, York, England; St Edmund Hall, Oxford (MA)
Career:
Elected Fellow of University College, Oxford (3 December 1836); appointed Praelector (tutor) of Philosophy and Logic at University College, Oxford (20 March 1837 - 1856); Public Examiner in Mathematics (by 1841); elected to the Professorship (1942), formally resigned Fellowship of University College on 6 May 1843; elected Fellow of University College honoris causa (26 March 1858). |
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 13/01/1842 |
| Age at election | 28 |
| Proposer | William Buckland; Charles Daubeny; Horace Hayman Wilson; Richard Greswell; Baden Powell; George Henry Sacheverell Johnson; Robert Walker; Travers Twiss |
| Relationships | Parents: Thomas Donkin (1776–1856), land agent, and Alice, née Bateman (1784–1860), daughter of William Bateman, surgeon, of Whitby, Yorkshire, and Sarah, née Fishburn. |
| Published works | RCN 37165
RCN 37484
RCN 10029 |
| General context | Investigated composition of the musical scale.
Remembered for The Secular Acceleration of the Moon's Mean Motion. |
| Sources | Sources:
Bulloch's Roll; DNB |
| Virtual International Authority File | http://viaf.org/viaf/45085785 |
| Royal Society code | NA7402 |
| Reference number | Title | Date |
| EC/1842/03 | Donkin, William Fishburn: certificate of election to the Royal Society | |
| RR/3/95 | Referee's report by Arthur Cayley, on a paper 'On the equation of Laplace's functions' by William Fishburn Donkin | 5 January 1857 |
| RR/2/227 | Referee's report by William Fishburn Donkin, on a paper 'Researches on the theory of invariants' by William Spottiswoode | 2 May 1855 |
| RR/4/69 | Referee's report by Arthur Cayley, on a paper 'On the analytical theory of the attraction of solids bounded by surfaces of a hypothetical class including the ellipsoid' by William Fishburn Donkin | 26 January 1860 |
| RR/4/247 | Referee's report by William Fishburn Donkin, on a paper 'On an extended form of the index symbol in the calculus of operations' by William Spottiswoode | 12 March 1860 |
| RR/3/96 | Referee's report by William Thomson, on a paper 'On the equation of Laplace's functions' by William Fishburn Donkin | 20 February 1857 |
| RR/6/283 | Referee's report by William Fishburn Donkin, on a paper 'On the motion of a rigid body acted on by no external forces' by James Joseph Sylvester | 22 June 1866 |
| PT/60/1 | Paper, 'On the analytical theory of the attraction of the solids bounded by surfaces of a hypothetical class including the ellipsoid' by W F [William Fishburn] Donkin | 1 September 1859 |
| PT/48/5 | Paper, 'On a class of differential equations including those which occur in dynamical problems. Part I' by W F [William Fishburn] Donkin | 21 February 1854 |
| PT/56/4 | Paper, 'On the equation of Laplace's functions, etc.' by W F [William Fishburn] Donkin | [1856] |
| PT/51/7/2 | Plate, diagram of motion of three mutually attracting bodies by William Fishburn Donkin | 15 February 1855 |
| PT/51/7/1 | Manuscript, 'On a class of differential equations, including those which occur in dynamical problems. Part II' by W F [William Fishburn] Donkin | 15 February 1855 |
| PT/48/5/1 | Manuscript, 'On a class of differential equations including those which occur in dynamical problems. Part I' by W F [William Fishburn] Donkin | 21 February 1854 |
| PT/48/5/2 | Plate, diagram of angles of spherical triangle by William Fishburn Donkin | 21 February 1854 |
| RR/5/251 | Referee's report by William Fishburn Donkin, on a paper 'On the equations of rotation of a solid body about a fixed point' by William Spottiswoode | 22 June 1863 |
| RR/2/63 | Referee's report by William Spottiswoode, on a paper 'On a class of differential equations, including those which occur in dynamical problems. - Part II' by William Fishburn Donkin | 28 June 1855 |
| RR/2/59 | Referee's report by Arthur Cayley, on a paper 'On a class of differential equations, including those which occur in dynamical problems.- Part I' by William Fishburn Donkin | 29 March 1854 |
| MS/257/2/19 | Letter from William Fishburn Donkin, Oxford to Edward Sabine | 11 November [1814-1869] |
| MS/257/2/18 | Letter from William Fishburn Donkin, Oxford to Edward Sabine | 30 November 1859 |
| MS/257/2/20 | Letter from William Fishburn Donkin, Oxford to Edward Sabine | 6 December [1814-1869] |
| RR/4/17 | Referee's report by William Fishburn Donkin, on a paper 'On the theory of probabilities' by George Boole | 23 June 1862 |
| RR/3/57 | Referee's report by William Fishburn Donkin, on three papers 'A memoir on the theory of matrices'; 'A memoir on the automorphic linear transformation of a bipartite quadric function'; 'On certain forumlae for diferentiation' by Arthur Cayley | 12 April 1858 |
| PT/51/7 | Paper, 'On a class of differential equations, including those which occur in dynamical problems. Part II' by W F [William Fishburn] Donkin | 15 February 1855 |
| PT/59/7 | Paper, 'On the comparison of transcendents with certain applications to the theory of definite integrals' by George Boole | [1857] |
| RR/2/60 | Referee's report by William Spottiswoode, on a paper 'On a class of differential equations, including those which occur in dynamical problems.- Part I' by William Fishburn Donkin | 7 April 1854 |
| RR/3/163 | Referee's report by William Fishburn Donkin, on a paper 'On the enumeration of x-edra having triedral summits, and an (x—1)-gonal base' by Thomas Penyngton Kirkman | 31 August 1855 |
| RR/4/14 | Referee's report by William Fishburn Donkin, on a paper 'On simultaneous differential equations of the first order in which the number of the variables exceeds by more than one the number of the equations' by George Boole | 28 June 1862 |
| RR/4/38 | Referee's report by William Fishburn Donkin on a paper 'On the equation of differences for an equation of any order, and in particular for the equations of the orders two, three, four, and five' by Arthur Cayley | 16 May 1860 |
| RR/4/58 | Referee's report by Willism Fishburn Donkin, on a paper 'On the differential coefficients and determinants of lines, and their application to analytical mechanics' by A Cohen | 25 June 1862 |
| RR/4/68 | Referee's report by William Thomson, Lord Kelvin on a paper 'On the analytical theory of the attraction of solids bounded by surfaces of a hypothetical class including the ellipsoid' by William Fishburn Donkin | 15 February 1860 |
| RR/4/73 | Referee's report by William Fishburn Donkin, on a paper 'On the laws of operation, and the systematization of mathematics' by Alexander John Ellis | 8 January 1860 |
| RR/4/77 | Referee's report by William Fishburn Donkin, on a paper 'On scalar and clinant algebraical coordinate geometry, introducing a new and more general theory of analytical geometry, including the received as a particular case, and explaining ‘imaginary points,’ ‘intersections,’ and ‘lines.’' by Alexander John Ellis | 15 May 1860 |
| RR/4/78 | Referee's report by William Fishburn Donkin, on a paper 'On scalar and clinant algebraical coordinate geometry, introducing a new and more general theory of analytical geometry, including the received as a particular case, and explaining ‘imaginary points,’ ‘intersections,’ and ‘lines.’' by Alexander John Ellis | 9 May 1860 |