of lectures on natural philosophy, mechanics, and astronomy until 1829. He was one of the original fellows of the Astronomical Society of London, and he held the office of secretary from 14 Feb. 1823 to 10 Feb. 1826. He was also on the teaching staff of Guy's Hospital, and vice-president of Dr. Birkbeck's London Mechanics' Institution. He appears to have left this country for America about 1829 or 1830, to become chief engineer of silver mines and chief superintendent of a mint in Mexico. The preface to the revised edition of his ‘Elementary Principles of Natural Philosophy’ was dated ‘Guanaxuato, August 1830.’ The book was affectionately dedicated to Dr. Birkbeck and the officers and members of the London Mechanics' Institution. In 1834–5 Millington was residing at Philadelphia, and a paper of his ‘On the Rappahannock Gold Mines in Virginia’ appears in the ‘Transactions of the Pennsylvania Geological Society,’ 1835, i. 147. Two years later he became professor of chemistry and natural philosophy at the William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Virginia, and was subsequently state geologist of Mississippi. He died 10 July 1868, and was buried in Bruton parish churchyard, Williamsburg, where there is a monument with a long inscription to his memory.
Millington's published works are: ‘Epitome of the Elementary Principles of Natural and Experimental Philosophy,’ London, 1823; 2nd edit. 1830. ‘Elements of Civil Engineering,’ Philadelphia, 1839. He also contributed a paper on the hydraulic ram to the ‘Quarterly Journal of Science,’ 1816, i. 211, and one on street illumination to the same periodical, 1818, v. 177. In 1816 he obtained a patent (No. 3977) for a ship's propeller, and he gave evidence in 1817 before a select committee of the House of Commons on Hill and Bundy's patent. He was also examined in May 1829 before the select committee on the patent laws. It appears from his evidence that he had for many years carried on a considerable practice as a patent agent.
[Millington's Works; information kindly supplied by Mr. C. W. Coleman, librarian to the William and Mary College, Virginia.]
MILLINGTON, Sir THOMAS (1628–1704), physician, son of Thomas Millington, esq., of Newbury, Berkshire, was born at Newbury in 1628. He was sent to Westminster School, whence he was elected to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1645, graduating A.B. in 1649 and M.A. in 1657. He then removed to Oxford, where he graduated M.D. in 1659 and became fellow of All Souls' College. Here he took part with Wilkins, Boyle, Wallis, Wren, and Willis in those scientific meetings in which originated the Royal Society, of which he was an original member. In 1672 he became a fellow of the College of Physicians; in 1678 he was chosen censor; in 1679 Harveian orator; from 1686 to 1689 treasurer; and from 1696 till his death, president. In 1675 he was appointed Sedleian professor of natural philosophy at Oxford. His inaugural lecture on 12 April 1676 was, according to Wood, ‘much commended’ (Wood, Life and Times, ed. Clark, ii. 343). He retained the post till his death, but generally performed the duties of the office by deputy. He became physician to William and Mary; was knighted in 1680; and occupied the same office under Queen Anne. In 1701, by an advance of 2,000l. he freed the College of Physicians of a debt of nearly 7,000l. Millington died of asthma in London, 5 Jan. 1704, and was buried on the 28th in the Wentworth Chapel of Gosfield Church, Essex, where there was a fine monumental brass to his memory, which, with the exception of some coats of arms, was stolen from its Purbeck-marble slab at the beginning of the present century.
Millington is spoken of in laudatory terms as a physician by Sydenham, and under the name of ‘Machaon’ in Garth's ‘Dispensary,’ but is now chiefly remembered as the alleged discoverer of sexuality in plants. Nehemiah Grew [q. v.], in a lecture on the anatomy of flowers, read to the Royal Society on 6 Nov. 1676, says: ‘In discourse hereof with our learned Savilian [an error] professor, Sir Thomas Millington, he told me, that he conceived that the attire [stamens] doth serve as the male for the generation of the seed. I immediately replied, that I was of the same opinion …’ As Pulteney points out (Sketches of the Progress of Botany, i. 336), the credit probably belongs rather to Grew himself, Millington being, as Sachs says (History of Botany, p. 382, English translation), ‘a botanist otherwise unknown to history;’ but the date of this lecture is six years earlier than Grew's ‘Anatomy of Plants.’
There is a fine portrait of Millington at the Royal College of Physicians, and the younger Linnæus commemorated him in the genus Millingtonia among Bignoniaceæ.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. 1878, i. 363; Patrick's Autobiography, passim.]
MILLINGTON, WILLIAM, D.D. (d. 1466?), the first provost of King's College, Cambridge, was a native of Pocklington, Yorkshire. He was probably educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge. He was ordained
