David Hartley

David Hartley (; baptized 21 June 1705 Old Style; died 28 August 1757) was an English philosopher and founder of the Associationist school of psychology. Early life and family history David Hartley was born in 1705 in the vicinity of Halifax, Yorkshire. His mother died three months after his birth. His father, an Anglican clergyman, died when David was fifteen. Hartley was educated at Bradford Grammar School and in 1722 was admitted as a Sizar to Jesus College, Cambridge where he was a Rustat scholar. He received his BA in 1726 and MA in 1729. In April 1730 he became the first layperson to be Master of Magnus Grammar School (Magnus Church of England Academy), Newark, and it was there that he began to practise medicine. On 21 April 1730, Hartley married Alice Rowley (1705–31). The couple moved to Bury St Edmunds, and Alice died there giving birth to their son David Hartley (the Younger) (1731–1813). While in Bury, Hartley met his second wife, Elizabeth Packer (1713–78), the fifth child and only daughter of Robert Packer (died 1731) and Mary Winchcombe, a wealthy and influential family with estates in Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, and Berkshire, including Donnington Castle, Shellingford, and Bucklebury, Berks. (Mary Winchcombe was the daughter of Sir Henry Winchcombe, Bart., and the sister of Frances, wife of Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke.) Despite the opposition of Elizabeth's family, David and Elizabeth wed on 25 August 1735, after agreeing to a severe set of restrictions that kept the £5,000 Elizabeth received upon her marriage completely out of the hands of her husband. Their first child, Mary (1736–1803), was born eleven months later. In 1736 the family moved to London, and then in 1742 to Bath, Somerset. When Elizabeth's last surviving elder brother died without issue in 1746, their son Winchcombe Henry (1740–94) inherited the family estates, making the family (though not Hartley himself) the possessors of significant wealth. Hartley died in Bath on 28 August 1757. He was buried at St John the Baptist Church, Old Sodbury, Gloucestershire. Education and professional career At Cambridge, Hartley studied with Nicholas Saunderson, who, though blind since infancy, became the fourth Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. Hartley was later instrumental in raising the subscription for the posthumous publication of Saunderson's Elements of Algebra (1740).