the life of daniel de moivre (fl. 1687-1731) david

THE LIFE OF DANIEL DE MOIVRE (FL. 1687-1731)
BY
DAVID LASOCKI
In his recent article in this journal, 'Daniel Demoivre (c. 1675-c.1720) and his Music', Michael
Stratford remarked that 'Virtually nothing is known of the life of Daniel Demoivre'l. In fact my own
researches 2 have brought to light a certain amount of biographical material, which is collected in
the present article.
As Stratford speculates, Daniel was indeed French. He was the son of a surgeon at Vitry-Ie­
Franc;ois in Champagne and the younger brother of the distinguished mathematician Abraham De
Moivre (1667 -1754 V Daniel presumably took recorder and composition lessons as a child. As yet
we know nothing of the remainder of his education, but perhaps it was similar to his brother's. Until
the age offive, Abraham was educated at home by a tutor. Then, curiously, although the family
were Huguenots, his father sent him to the school established in Vitry in 1667 by the Peres de la
Doctrine Chretiennefor the express purpose of combating the Protestants. At the age of eleven he
was sent to the Protestant university at Sedan, until it was suppressed in 1681, then to the university
at Saumur, and finally to study privately in Paris. His education stressed the classics as well as
mathematics, logic and physics.
When the Edict of Nantes was revoked by Louis XIV in 1685, Abraham was only 18 and Daniel
presumablg a few years younger. Abraham is known to have been imprisoned for his faith in the
Prieure de Saint-Martin, where unsuccessful attempts were made to convert him to Roman
Catholicism. One 18th-century biographer says he was released on 27 April 1688, although other
sources suggest 1686. In fact it must have been closer to 1686 because he and Daniel were both
made denizens of Great Britain on 16 December 1687. 4 Whether Daniel was imprisoned with
Abraham or separately is not yet known.
The family name seems to have been plain Moivre. Both Abraham and Daniel added the noble
preposition 'De' upon arriving in England. Ivo Schneider suggests that perhaps Abraham did so
'to raise himself, at least in name, to the same social level as his aristocratic pupils'5. On the title
pages of Abraham's mathematical books and papers, the surname is found both as two words (De
Moivre or de Moivre) and as one (Demoivre), although surviving signatures of Abraham's use the
two-word forms. The name was apparently anglicized and pronounced as three syllables, as
witness Alexander Pope's couplet on Abraham:
Who made the spider parallels design
Sure as Demoivre, without rule or line?6
In their adopted country, the brothers seem to have struggled to make a living. Throughout his
life, Abraham made the bulk of his living from private teaching. In a letter to his fellow
mathematician Johann I Bernoulli dated 2 December 1707, he wrote: '\ am obliged to work almost
from morning to night; that is, teaching my pupils and walking. But since the city [London] is very
large, a considerable part of my time is employed solely in walking. That is what reduces the
amount of profit I can make, and cuts into my leisure for study. Moreover one is obliged here more
than anywhere else in the world to maintain a certain appearance; that is almost as essential as
scientific merit. What remains to me at the end of the year is that I have indeed lived ... but without
having anything to spare'.7 Daniel, too, seems to have made his living primarily by teaching.
The brothers must have been heartened by the attempt in 1695 to found Royal Academies to
give public instruction in several arts and sciences. Abraham was to have taught mathematics;
Daniel was named as one of the recorder teachers along with James Paisible and John Banister II. 8
Unfortunately, owing partly to the curious lottery method by which pupils were to be admitted to
the Academies, the attempt foundered, and the brothers had to keep to private teaching (and
walking) for the rest of their lives.
Daniel may have participated in the informal concerts of Thomas Britton, the musical 'small
coal man', since some of his duets for recorders are mentioned in the sale catalogue of Britton's
music books.9 As Stratford notes, De Moivre was one of the 'best performers' taking part in the first
of the proposed monthly subscription concerts at Stationers Hall, the second most important
London venue for concerts, in 1717. (That opening concert was in fact held in the Leathersellers
Hall on 27 February.) The advertising material claimed: 'It is not at all doubted, but after hearing,
the audience will agree that there never was yet in London any concert like this'. In the event the
audience does seem to have doubted it, since the series foundered after the next concert. 10
15
THE CONSORT
16
De Moivre is mentioned four time in the diary kept by Sir Dudley Ryder as a law student in
London in 1715-16. II Ryder twice reports hearing his recorder- playing friend George Smith, a
Nonconformist minister from Hackney, play with De Moivre, first at an unidentified location (5
August 1715), then at the London Coffee House (2 September 1715). The tradition of a teacher
playing duets with his pupils is long and honourable.
Another of Ryder's recorder- playing friends, Mr Jackson, may also have studied with De Moivre.
He came into the coffee house on the occasion when Smith and De Moivre were playing duets and
joined in with them; another time Jackson was reading Jonathan Swift's Tale of a Tub to De Moivre
when Ryder went to John's Coffee House, BQW Lane, near the Exchange (5 October 1715). A
biographer of Abraham's reported that 'he never gave up his taste for belles lettres' .12 Daniel, too,
seems to have kept up his literary interests.
Finally, Ryder went with some friends to hear De Moivre play the recorder at an unidentified
tavern (17 November 1715). Since Ryder, a keen amateur recorder player himself, was so familiar
with De Moivre, he may also have been a student of De Moivre's, although the diary is silent on this
subject.
Unlike his brother Abraham, who apparently considered himself too impecunious to marry,
Daniel brought up a small family. He is mentioned several times in the registers that survive from
the West Street Protestant (Huguenot) church, Westminster (1706-43).13 (The register dating from
the founding of the church in 1690to 1706 is lost). These records show that Daniel's wife was called
Anne and that the couple lived in Earl (now Earlham) Street adjoining Degory Coffee House. Three
children were born to them in 1707 -09: Daniel (baptised 16 January 1707), Anne (baptised 12
March 1708) and Elizabeth (born 30 May, baptised 14 June '1709). The last reference to Daniel
in the registers is in November 1731, when he became godfather to one of his wife's nieces. It is
likely that he died before 1738, since he does not appear among the members ofthe Royal Society
of Musicians of Great Britain, founded that year.14
Stratford assumes that De Moive 'was a player of some ability' on the recorder. In fact his
published works -- presumably written for himself, and perhaps his students -- disclose a relatively
modest technique. This may have been one of the reasons why he did not secure a place as a Court
or theatre musician, when dozens of other Frenchmen did. Another possible reason is that he did
not play another instrument besides the recorder. The well-known recorder players of the age, such
as Paisible, Banister, James Graves, Robert King, John Loeillet, John Baston and Jean Christian
Kytch, made their living primarily as orchestral oboists or string players, picking up the recorder
for special obbligati or for concert performances. IS
Daniel De Moivre is therefore an interesting example of a journeyman musician without a
guaranteed wage from a steady post, making a living from day to day, rubbing shoulders with the
numerous recorder-playing amateurs of London, teaching and playing in the coffee houses and
taverns, and taking part in the occasional public concert.
NOTES
1. The Consort XLIII (1987), 13-16.
2. Professional Recorder Players in England, J540- J 740, 2 vols. (Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Iowa,
1983), II, 831-32; 'Dudley Ryder, An Amateur Musician and Dancer in England (1715-16)" The American
Recorder XXVIII/l (February 1987), 6. I have added the material on Abraham's life especially for this article.
3. The relationship is mentioned in 'Moivre, Abraham de; Dictionary ofNational Biography (reprint, London:
Oxford University Press, 1921-22), XIII, 563-64. The fullest bIography of Abraham is Helen M. Walker, 'Abraham
De Moivre', Scripta Mathematica 11/4 (August 1934), 316-33. A more recent study discussing his contribution
to mathematics but including some additional biographical material is Ivo Schneider, 'Der Mathematiker Abraham
de Moivre (1667-1754)', Archive for History ofExact Sciences V (1968-69), 177-317. See also the bibliography
in Ian Hacking, 'Moivre, Abraham De', Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1974), IX, 454-55. Abraham made important contributions to trigonometry, and the theory of infinite series, finite
differences, annuities, life insurance and, above all, probability.
4. William A. Shaw, ed., Letters of Denization and Acts of Naturalization for Aliens in England and Ireland,
J 603- 1700 (Lymington: Huguenot Society of London, 1911), 195. (A denizen is 'in the law of Great Britain, an
alien admitted to citizenship by royal letters patent, but incapable of inheriting or holding any public office' [Oxford
English Dictionary) or of bequeathing to his heirs any property held before denization.)
5. Op. cit, 203.
17
DE MOIVRE
6. Essay on Man (1733), iii, 103-04. Another indication of the surname being pronounced as three syllables
is Ryders version of the name: Demodore (see below).
7. Translated and quoted in Walker, op. cit. , 329.
8. Michael Tilmouth, 'The Royal Academies of 1695', Music & Letters XXXVIII/4 (October 1957), 327, 329 .
9. Sir John Hawkins, A General History ofthe Science and Practice ofMusic' (London 1776; reprint ed. Charles
Cudworth, 2 vols., New York: Dover, 1963), II, 792.
10. Michael Tilmouth, 'A Calendar of Reference to Music in Newspapers Published in London and the
Provinces (1660-1719) ', Royal Musical Association Research Chroncle I (1961),96-97 .
11. The Diary ofDudley Ryder 1715-1716, ed. William Matthews (London : Methuen, 1939),69,89,114,138.
12. Translated and quoted in Walker, op. cit., 327.
13. William & Susan Minet, Registres des quatres eglises du Petit Charenton, de West Street, de Pearl Street
et de Crispin Street (London: Huguenot Society of London, 1929) , 14, 16, 18,33,35,36, 39.
14. See Betty Matthews, The Royal Society ofMusicians ofGreat Britain: List ofMembers, 1738-1984 (London:
The Royal Society of Musicians, 1985).
15. Lasocki, Professional Recorder Players, passim.
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