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Robert Richard Anstice

English clergyman and mathematician

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ18300375
Source-derived summary

Robert Richard Anstice (1813–1853) was an English clergyman and mathematician who wrote two remarkable papers on combinatorics, published the same year he died in the Cambridge and Dublin Mathematical Journal. He pioneered the use of primitive roots in this field, anticipating the work of Eugen Netto on Steiner's triplets.

Anstice studied at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated in 1835, receiving a Master's in 1837. Nothing is known about his life in the next ten years. In 1846, he was ordained priest, and in the following year he became rector of Wigginton, Hertfordshire. He died there in 1853, and is buried, under a cast iron tombstone, in the churchyard at St Michael's Church, Madeley, Shropshire.

References

Bibliography

Anderson, Ian; Crilly, Tony (2013). "Robert Richard Anstice (1813–1853): a Hertfordshire bicentenary". Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics. 28 (2): 75–83.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Robert Richard Anstice” as english clergyman and mathematician. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Robert, Richard and Anstice.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1813, 1853, 1835, 1837—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1813-04-09. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Robert, Richard and Anstice providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Robert Richard Anstice”, the useful work is to connect “english clergyman and mathematician” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18300375. VIAF identifies the subject as 304778567. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1813, 1853, 1835 and 1837.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Robert Richard Anstice” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.