Jedediah Buxton

The caption reads: Jedediah Buxton, A poor Day Labourer: born at Elmton in Derbyshire: who without being able to write or cast Accounts in the Ordinary method: perfor'md the longest Calculations and solv'd the most difficult Problems in Arithmetics, by the strength of his Memory; – neither Noise, nor Conversation cou'd interrupt him: he would either go on with his Calculations all the time or leave off in the midst and resume them again eventhough it should be Years afterwards.

Jedediah Buxton (1707–1772) was a noted English mental calculator, born at Elmton, near Creswell, in Derbyshire.

Life Buxton was born in 1707 and although his father was schoolmaster of Elmton, and his grandfather had been the vicar, he could not write; and his knowledge, except of numbers, was extremely limited. How he came to understand the relative proportions of numbers and their progressive denominations, he did not remember. However, this was his interest. He frequently took no notice of objects, and when he did, it was only with reference to their numbers. After hearing a sermon he knew nothing about its content other than that it contained a certain number of words which he had counted during its delivery.

He measured the lands of Elmton, consisting of some thousand acres (4 km2), simply by striding over it. He gave the area not only in acres, roods and perches, but even in square inches. After this, he reduced them into square hairs'-breadths, reckoning forty-eight to each side of the inch. His memory was so great, that in resolving a question he could leave off and resume the operation again at the same point after the lapse of several months. His perpetual application to figures prevented the acquisition of other knowledge. Among the examples of Buxton's arithmetical feats which are given are his calculation of the product of a farthing doubled 139 times. The result, expressed in pounds, extends to thirty-nine figures, and is correct so far as it can be readily verified by the use of logarithms. A portrait by Miss Maria Hartley in 1764 hangs in Elmton Church.

Jedediah Buxton was the son of William Buxton, a farmer and also the schoolmaster at Elmton. However, the Vicar of Elmton was not Jedediah's biological grandfather. John Davenport, the Vicar of Elmton, 1689–1709, was the second husband of Ann (William Buxton's mother). She had been previously married to Jedidiah's paternal grandfather, Edward Buxton of Chelmorton.

A blue plaque was erected in Jedediah's honour in Elmton in 2011 after a public poll.