Charles Bonnycastle was a professor of natural philosophy and mathematics at the University of Virginia from 1825 until his death in 1840. Born in England, Bonnycastle was the son of a mathematics professor at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. Bonnycastle himself attended the academy and contributed to his father’s noted textbook. In 1824 he accepted an offer to join the faculty at the newly established University of Virginia, teaching natural philosophy and later mathematics and engineering. Bonnycastle proved an effective teacher, using updated pedagogy designed to engage beginning students and, in 1834, publishing his own textbook, Inductive Geometry. He died in 1840.
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