Charles Bonnycastle

I entertain a very warm friendship for Mr Bonnycastle and shall undoubtedly bring him home with me next vacation. He is unmarried, and altho' not handsome, is so amiable, gentleman like and well informed, that he cannot fail being highly esteemed when once known.⁷

Prof Bonneycastle of the U of Va, to Miss Ann Mason Tutt, eldest daughter of Charles Tutt.⁹

"A serious incident of student abuse of a slave occurred when students assaulted Professor Bonnycastle's slave Fielding. When accused the students replied that Fielding was very insolent to two students who were trying to disperse a large group of free "Negroes in the street." Fielding had told them not to interfere. They hit Fielding several times with a switch and later with a stick, and when he displayed "an insolent manner" as he moved away, they pursued, overtook and beat him until he "humbled himself." After urging Fielding to run, Professor Bonnycastle had been held back by one of the students who later declared "that any man who would protect a negro as much in the wrong as Fielding is no better than a negro himself." The case was left to the courts to resolve." No evidence of action taken was found in the Albemarle County Law Order book 1837-41.^12,13,14

Sacred to the memory of
Charles Bonnycastle
late Professor of Mathematics
in the University of Virginia
who was born in London
on the 22nd day of November 1796
was made professor in the University in 1825
and continued in this station until his death
on the 31st of October 1840.²¹

The loss of Professors Bonnycastle and Davis, gave the University just cause to mourn. They were among her chief supports, and were taken away in the meridian of their usefulness. We cannot forbear a slight tribute to their memory.
     Mr. Bonnycastle was one of the early professors who came over from England with Mr. Gilmer in 1824. Though young, his high qualifications fitted him alike for several of the chairs in the University. He first filled that of Natural Philosophy, and on the return of Mr. Key to England, succeeded to the mathematical, which he filled with preeminent ability up to the time of his death. he was always acknowledged to be the possessor of a great mind, which readily made him master of the most abstruse learning. The study of mathematics seemed to be to him but a process of attentive reading. As a lecturer, he was clear, patient and powerful; and, in matters of science, he was a complete agrarian, levelling its difficulties to the comprehension of every mind. At times, in one short aphorism, he would display a profundity of thought quite startling; and his students declared, that, by way of illustration,he frequently solved difficulties which had perplexed them in other branches of their studies. Mathematics was rendered by him, what he repeatedly said it was, "a pure system of logic." Many parts of his course were supplied by himself; and he wrote a text book for his class, which gained him great renown.
     It has been already stated, that his acquirements were not confined to his own department; nor were they even to science. He was fond of rambling through the rich and varied fields of literature, and culled their fair flowers with no little taste and judgment. His general reading was extensive, he was a graceful and an imaginative writer, as is shown by the few productions which he has left, and his conversation was unusually entertaining and instructive. In society and at home, he was often taciturn; and it was only at certain times that he opened his stores of information; but when he did, he never failed to charm and to surprise. He was a man of thought, rather than of feeling, and, though he was observant of his duty, and mindful of his obligations, he acted more from the convictions of a well-regulated mind, than from any prompting of the heart. His character has been misunderstood. He was neither selfish, nor austere. The intellectual predominated; but he was not devoid of benevolence. His habits of deep reflection made him often indifferent to what was passing around him; and, in his moods of abstraction, he would sit in the midst of his playful children, perfectly unconscious of their bewitching gambols. Their easy confidence and familiarity proved that there was no austerity in his nature. In his domestic relations he was exemplary. He married a Virginia lady; and whatever deficiency of the softer and benevolent feelings of our nature, there was in his character, was amply supplied by her amiability and overflowing kindness.
     I do not know that he ever became a citizen of the United States, though he frequently spoke of his intention to do so. He thought very favorably of our country and her institutions.
     Mr. Bonnycastle was a close student; and, perhaps, his devotion to study led to a premature death. He took very little exercise, studied in an unhealthy posture, and until a late hour of the night. The University sustained a great loss in his death; and may his successor prove it not irreparable.²²