Robert Holford Macdowall Bosanquet
Encyclopedia
Day Bosanquet
Admiral Sir Day Hort Bosanquet GCVO, KCB was the Governor of South Australia from 18 February 1909 until 22 March 1914.-Naval career:Born in Alnwick in Northumberland, Bosanquet joined the Royal Navy in 1857...
, and philosopher Bernard Bosanquet
Bernard Bosanquet (philosopher)
Bernard Bosanquet was an English philosopher and political theorist, and an influential figure on matters of political and social policy in late 19th and early 20th century Britain...
.
Bosanquet was the son of Rev. R. W. Bosanquet of Rock Hall
Rock Hall, Northumberland
Rock Hall is a privately-owned 18th-century country house, now occupied by a school, at Rock, Rennington, near Alnwick, Northumberland . It is a Grade II* listed building....
Alnwick
Alnwick
Alnwick is a small market town in north Northumberland, England. The town's population was just over 8000 at the time of the 2001 census and Alnwick's district population was 31,029....
, Northumberland
Northumberland
Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...
. He was educated at Eton College
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
, and took first class honors in Natural Science and Mathematics at Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College , founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England but founded by a family with strong Scottish connections....
, and later became a fellow of St. John's College
St John's College, Oxford
__FORCETOC__St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, one of the larger Oxford colleges with approximately 390 undergraduates, 200 postgraduates and over 100 academic staff. It was founded by Sir Thomas White, a merchant, in 1555, whose heart is buried in the chapel of...
. He was called to the Bar
Call to the bar
The Call to the Bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party, and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received a "call to the bar"...
at Lincoln's Inn
Lincoln's Inn
The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn. Although Lincoln's Inn is able to trace its official records beyond...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
but worked mainly tutoring at Oxford, notably for the Natural Science School, and later was a professor at the Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
. He was a musician and an authority on organ construction, and published a number of experimental and theoretical papers on acoustics
Acoustics
Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of all mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics...
, electromagnetism
Electromagnetism
Electromagnetism is one of the four fundamental interactions in nature. The other three are the strong interaction, the weak interaction and gravitation...
and astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Astronomy Society in 1871 and the Royal Society in 1890. In 1890 he retired to Tenerife
Tenerife
Tenerife is the largest and most populous island of the seven Canary Islands, it is also the most populated island of Spain, with a land area of 2,034.38 km² and 906,854 inhabitants, 43% of the total population of the Canary Islands. About five million tourists visit Tenerife each year, the...
, spending summers in England. He died at home at Castello Zamorra, Tenerife in 1912.
Bosanquet developed classes for musical tunings used mapping pitches in a coordinate arrangement he called a generalized keyboard
Generalized keyboard
Generalized keyboards are musical keyboards with regular, tile-like arrangements usually with rectangular or hexagonal keys, and were developed for performing music in different tunings...
, contrasting with Henry Ward Poole
Henry Ward Poole
Henry Ward Poole was an American surveyor, civil engineer, educator and writer on and inventor of systems of musical tuning. He was brother of the famous librarian William Frederick Poole, and cousin of the celebrated humorist, journalist and politician Fitch Poole.-Biography:Poole was born 13...
's and Colin Brown's keyboards which were based on symmetry of key relationships. The keyboard was demonstrated in two instruments loaned permanently to the South Kensington Museum in 1876: a 4-octave harmonium tuned in 53 equal temperament
53 equal temperament
In music, 53 equal temperament, called 53-TET, 53-EDO, or 53-ET, is the tempered scale derived by dividing the octave into 53 equal steps . Each step represents a frequency ratio of 21/53, or 22.6415 cents , an interval sometimes called the Holdrian comma.- History :Theoretical interest in this...
with 84 keys per octave built by T. A. Jennings in 1872-3, and a 3-octave generalized keyboard organ built in 1875 with 48 notes per octave tuned to Hermann von Helmholtz
Hermann von Helmholtz
Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz was a German physician and physicist who made significant contributions to several widely varied areas of modern science...
' approximate just intonation (schismatic temperament
Schismatic temperament
The schismatic temperament is a musical tuning system that results from tempering the schisma of 32805:32768 to a unison. It is also called the schismic temperament or Helmholtz temperament.-Comparison with other tunings:...
) or 36 notes per octave tuned in quarter-comma meantone
Quarter-comma meantone
Quarter-comma meantone, or 1/4-comma meantone, was the most common meantone temperament in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and was sometimes used later. This method is a variant of Pythagorean tuning...
selected by means of draw stops. In 1877, speculating on papers about Indian śrutis
Sruti (music)
The shruti is a Sanskrit term used in several contexts throughout the history of the Indian music. A shruti is the smallest interval of pitch the ear can detect.-Contexts:...
, he relaxed the arrangement to permit mapping 22 equal temperament
22 equal temperament
In music, 22 equal temperament, called 22-tet, 22-edo, or 22-et, is the tempered scale derived by dividing the octave into 22 equal steps . Each step represents a frequency ratio of 21/22, or 54.55 cents ....
. He also invented a sensitive polariscope working independent of direction.