Nor were Struensee's relations with the queen less offensive to a nation which had a traditional veneration for the royal house of Oldenburg, while Caroline Matilda's shameless conduct in public brought the Crown into contempt. The society which daily gathered round the king and queen excited the derision of the foreign ambassadors. The unhappy king was little more than the butt of his environment, and once, when he threatened his keeper, Brandt, with a flogging for some impertinence, Brandt, encouraged by Struensee and the queen, actually locked him in his room and beat him with his fists till he begged for mercy. Things were at their worst during the winter of 1771. Struensee, who had, in the meantime, created himself a count, now gave full rein to his licentiousness and brutality. If, as we are assured, he publicly snubbed the queen, we may readily imagine how he treated common folk. Before long the people had an opportunity of expressing their disgust openly. In the summer of 1771 Caroline Matilda was delivered of a daughter, who was christened Louisa Augusta; and a proclamation commanded that a “Te Deum” in honour of the event should be sung in all the churches; but so universal was the belief that the child was Struensee's that, at the end of the ordinary services, the congregation rose and departed en masse.
The general ill will against Struensee, which had been smouldering all through the autumn of 1771, found expression at last in a secret conspiracy against him, headed by Rantzau-Ascheburg and others, in the name of the queen-dowager Juliana Maria. Early in the morning of the 17th of January 1772 Struensee, Brandt and the queen were arrested in their respective bedrooms, and “the liberation of the king,” who was driven round Copenhagen by his deliverers in a gold carriage, was received with universal rejoicing. The chief charge against Struensee was that he had usurped the royal authority in contravention of the Kongelov. He defended himself with considerable ability and, at first, confident that the prosecution would not dare to lay hands on the queen, he denied that their liaison had ever been criminal. But, on hearing that she was also a prisoner of state, his courage evaporated, and he was base enough to betray her, though she did all in her power to shield him. On the 25th of April Struensee and Brandt were condemned first to lose their right hands and then to be beheaded; their bodies were afterwards to be drawn and quartered. Sentence of death was the least that Struensee had to expect. He had undoubtedly been guilty of lèse-majesté and gross usurpation of the royal authority, both capital offences according to pars. 7 and 26 of the Kongelov. The sentences were carried out on the 28th of April, Brandt suffering first.
See Élie Salomon François Reverdil, Struensee et la cour de Copenhague 1760-1772 (Paris, 1858); Karl Wittich, Struensee (Leipzig, 1879); Peter Edward Holm, Danmark-Norges Historie, vol. iv. (Copenhagen, 1897-1905); Gustave Bascle De Lagrèze, La Reine Caroline-Mathilde et le Comte Struensee (Paris, 1887); Robert Nisbet Bain, Scandinavia, cap. xv. (Cambridge, 1905); William Henry Wilkins, A Queen of Tears (London, 1904); Georg Friedrich von Jenssen-Tusch, Die Verschwörung gegen die Königin Karoline Mathilde und die Grafen Struensee und Brandt, nach bisher ungedruckten Originalakten (Leipzig, 1864).
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STRUTT, JEDEDIAH (1726-1797), British inventor and manufacturer, was born at South Normanton, Derbyshire, where his father occupied a farm, on the 28th of July 1726. He was educated at a good country school, with a view to becoming a farmer, but, showing great aptitude for mechanical arts, he was in 1740 articled for seven years to a wheelwright at Findern, near Derby. Here he lodged with a hosier, Woollatt, whose daughter he married in 1755. In the meantime he had inherited, from his uncle, the stock on a farm at Blackwell, near south Normanton, now, and probably then, the property of the duke of Devonshire. While in occupation of this farm his brother-in-law, William Woollatt, brought to his notice the efforts that had been unsuccessfully made to produce ribbed as well as plain goods on the stocking frame, and here he invented Strutt's Derby ribbing machine. Patents were taken out by Strutt and Woollatt in 1758 and 1759. Strutt went to live at Derby, and with his brother-in-law started a factory, “Derby Patent Ribs” at once becoming popular. In 1762 Strutt and Woollatt joined Samuel Need, a hosier of Nottingham, and carried on there and at Derby a very successful business. In 1768 they were approached by Richard Arkwright (q.v.), who had been recommended by Messrs Wright, bankers of Nottingham, to consult Need as to the possibilities of his cotton-spinning frame. Strutt at once realized its value, and was able to solve one or two minor difficulties which had interrupted the smooth working of the new mechanism. The firm of Arkwright, Strutt & Need started their first cotton mill at Nottingham, with horse power. Later works were erected at Cromford and, about 1780, after Strutt dissolved partnership with Arkwright, he built himself the mills at Belper and Milford, the greater part of which are still used. The partnership with Need had terminated in 1773 with the expiration of the patents. Shortly before this Strutt had made the discovery, which revolutionized the manufacture of calico, that cotton could be used throughout in its making. To house the machinery for this new invention the first fire-proof mill in England was built at Derby. In order to be near his work Strutt built, from his own designs, Milford House, near Belper, where he lived until 1795, when ill health compelled him to return to Derby. Here he died in 1797. He left three sons and two daughters.
His eldest son, William Strutt (1756-1830), was also of great mechanical ability. It was he who designed the calico factory above mentioned; he applied himself to the house-heating problem and, finally, invented the Belper stove. He also devised a self-acting spinning mule, which had however no great success. He was a fellow of the Royal Society. His son, Edward Strutt (1801-1880), was for some time M.P. for Derby, and in 1856 was raised to the peerage with the title of Baron Belper of Belper.
STRUVE, FRIEDRICH GEORG WILHELM (1793–1864), German astronomer, the son of Jacob Struve (1755–1841), was born at Altona on the 15th of April 1793. In 1808 he entered the university of Dorpat (Yuriev) , where he first studied philology, but soon turned his attention to astronomy. From 1813 to 1820 he was extraordinary professor of astronomy and mathematics at the new university and observer at the observatory, becoming in 1820 ordinary professor and director. He remained at Dorpat, occupied with researches on double stars and geodesy till 1839, when he removed to superintend the construction of the new central observatory at Pulkowa near St Petersburg, afterwards becoming director. Here he continued his activity until he was obliged to retire in 1861, owing to failing health. He died at St Petersburg on the 23rd of November 1864.
Struve's name is best known by his observations of double stars, which he carried on for many years. These bodies had first been regularly measured by W. Herschel, who discovered that many of them formed systems of two stars revolving round their common centre of gravity. After him J. Herschel (and for some time Sir James South) had observed them, but their labours were eclipsed by Struve. With the 9½-in. refractor at Dorpat he discovered a great number of double stars, and published in 1827 a list of all the known objects of this kind (Catalogus novus stellarum duplicium). His micrometric measurements of 2714 double stars were made from 1824 to 1837, and are contained in his principal work, Stellarum duplicium et multiplicium mensurae micrometricae (St Petersburg, 1837 seq.; a convenient summary of the results is given in vol. i. of the Dunecht Observatory Publications, 1876). The places of the objects were at the same time determined with the Dorpat meridian circle (Stellarum fixarum imprimis duplicium et multiplicium positiones mediae, St Petersburg, 1852 seq.). At Pulkowa he redetermined the “constant of aberration,” but was chiefly occupied in working out the results of former years' work and in the completion of the geodetic operations in which he had been engaged during the greater part of his life. He had commenced them with a survey of Livonia (1816-1819), which was followed by the measurement of an arc of meridian of more than 3½° in the Baltic provinces of Russia (Beschreibung der Breitengradmessung in den Ostseeprovinzen Russlands, 2 vols. 4to, Dorpat, 1831). This work was afterwards extended by Struve and General Tenner into a measurement of a meridional arc from the north coast of Norway to Ismail on the Danube (Arc du méridien de 25° 20′ entre le Danube et la Mer Glaciale, 2 vols, and 1 vol. plates, 4to, St Petersburg, 1857-1860). (See Geodesy; Earth, Figure of.)
