Author: Mackey, Sampson Arnold
Biography:
MACKEY, Sampson Arnold (1765-1843: ancestry.co.uk)
Mackey’s birth and death were inauspicious and his life could not have been easy but he was driven by a purpose: to educate the world about his research into astronomy. Mackey was baptised in Haddiscoe, Norfolk, on 6 Jan. 1765 when the record named him as “Samson Arnold, base born of Ann Mack.” He adopted the surname of his mother but used Mackey for his publications. Near the end of his life he is recorded as “Samuel Mack” in the 1841 Census when he was living in Doughty’s almshouse in Norwich. Mackey was apprenticed to a shoemaker at the age of eleven, possibly in Norwich. On 4 Dec. 1785 he married Elizabeth Gotts in Norwich. Their first son, Samson Mack, was born on 22 May 1786 but died and was buried on 2 Mar. 1787. A second son, Samson Arnold Mack, was born 28 Feb. 1788 and was buried on 9 Mar. of the same year. The couple used the same name for a third son, born on 28 June 1795, who survived. Two, or possibly three daughters, also died in infancy. It may have been in the late 1780s and early 1790s that Mackey served in the army but no records have been located. He set up as a shoemaker in Norwich in about 1811 and began developing his theories about astronomy, celestial mathematics, the inclination of the earth’s axis, and the age of the earth. The first part of his Mythological Astronomy was issued in 1822; he followed it with several expanded editions and other books including A Companion to the Mythological Astronomer (1824), A New Theory of the Earth (1825), Man’s Best Friend; or, The Evils of Pious Frauds (1826), A Lecture on Astronomy (1832), and The Age of Mental Emancipation (1836). By some, his works were met with ridicule but Mackey also attracted enthusiasts and believers. He was invited to join the freemasons in 1824 (an atheist, he refused the offer) and he gave lectures to the Philosophical Society in Norwich. In Dec. 1830 he visited London to lecture on the sources of water in the southern hemisphere. Mackey died on 29 July 1843 and was buried on 1 Aug. in the parish of St. Saviour, Norwich. (ancestry.co.uk 31 Dec. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 31 Dec. 2024; Joscelyn Godwin, The Theosophical Enlightenment [1994]) SR