Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Moyle, Matthew Paul
MOYLE, MATTHEW PAUL (1788–1880), meteorologist and writer on mining, second son of John Moyle, by Julia, daughter of Jonathan Hornblower [q. v.], was born at Chacewater, Cornwall, 4 Oct. 1788, and educated at Guy's and St. Thomas's Hospitals. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1809, and was afterwards in practice at Helston in Cornwall for the long period of sixty-nine years. A considerable portion of his practice consisted in attending the men accidentally injured in the tin and copper mines of his neighbourhood, and his attention was thus led to mining. In 1814 he sent to Thomson's ‘Annals of Philosophy’ ‘Queries respecting the flow of Water in Chacewater Mine;’ in the following years he communicated papers on ‘The Temperature of Mines,’ ‘On Granite Veins,’ and ‘On the Atmosphere of Cornish Mines.’ During a series of years he kept registers and made extensive and valuable observations on barometers and thermometers, and in conjunction with Robert Were Fox [q. v.] he wrote and communicated to Tilloch's ‘Philosophical Magazine’ in 1823, ‘An Account of the Observations and Experiments on the Temperature of Mines which have recently been made in Cornwall and the North of England.’ In 1841 he sent to Sturgeon's ‘Annals of Electricity’ a paper ‘On the Formation of Electro-type Plates independently of any engraving.’ He died at Cross Street, Helston, 7 Aug. 1880, leaving a large family.
[Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. 1874–82, 1890, pp. 373–4, 1289; Boase's Collect. Cornub. p. 600.]