It wasn’t confirmed when Charles
Babbage was born. A member of the
Babbage family recorded the date as 26th December 1791.
His father Benjamin was a wealthy Banker, and his mother Betsy Plumleigh,
was a housewife. They lived at 44
Crosby Row, Walworth, in London.
Charles was
ill as a child. It began when he
was five. At the age of ten he had
violent fevers. He was sent to live
in Devonshire with a clergyman. He
looked after him, until he was well again.
Here he went to a school run by the clergyman called Alphington, near
Exeter.
His father
could afford to send Charles Babbage to private schools.
His second school was Forty Hill, Enfield, in Middlesex.
Here he got a proper education. He
took a big interest in math's, especially Newton, but he disliked other subjects
like classics.
After he
left this school he had a private tutor from Oxford.
He taught him Maths, by using books, and he was soon up to university
level.
In October
1810, he joined Trinity College in Cambridge.
He was dissatisfied by the way he was taught, because it differed from
what the Oxford tutor taught him.
Along with
Edward Bromhead he set up a society in 1812.
The members were nine undergraduate mathematicians.
The ‘Analytical Society’ produced a book in 1813.
the English translation came out in 1816.
Another book contained examples on the Calculus in 1820.
A few years
later Charles Babbage moved from Trinity College, to Peterhouse College.
He graduated in 1814, with a B.A. His
partner Herschel was a more powerful mathematician then he was.
Charles
married in 1814, at an early age of 22, to Georgiana.
He left Cambridge in 1815, to live with his wife in London.
Did you know?
When Babbage was a young boy, he became intrigued by the Devil. One day he shut himself in a room, drew a circle of blood and sat in it. He then recited the Lord's Prayer backwards, and waited..................
He also conducted many other weird experiments. One of these was when he tried to make water shoes out of books. This led to him wanting to build his own calculating machine.