Sir Henry Billingsley (died 22 November 1606) was Lord Mayor of London

Lord Mayor of London

The Right Honourable Lord Mayor of London is the legal title for the Mayor of the City of London Corporation. The Lord Mayor of London is to be distinguished from the Mayor of London; the former is an officer only of the City of London, while the Mayor of London is the Mayor of Greater London and...

 and the first translator of Euclid

Euclid

Euclid , fl. 300 BC, also known as Euclid of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematician, often referred to as the "Father of Geometry". He was active in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I...

 into English.

Early Life

He was a son of William Billingsley, haberdasher and assaymaster of London, and his wife, Elizabeth Harlowe. He entered St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1551, and also studied at Oxford, where, under the tutelage of a former Augustinian friar named Whytehead, he developed an interest in mathematics. He did not take a degree but apprenticed to a London merchant. He became a haberdasher, becoming a freeman of the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers

Worshipful Company of Haberdashers

The Worshipful Company of Haberdashers is one of the senior Livery Companies of the City of London. The organisation, following on from the Mercers' Company, another Livery Company connected with clothing and haberdashery, received a Royal Charter in 1448...

 by patrimony in 1560.

Translation of Euclid

In 1570, Billingsley published his translation of Euclid's Elements

Euclid's Elements

Euclid's Elements is a mathematical and geometric treatise consisting of 13 books written by the Greek mathematician Euclid in Alexandria c. 300 BC. It is a collection of definitions, postulates , propositions , and mathematical proofs of the propositions...

 The elements of geometrie of the most ancient philosopher Euclide of Megara

Euclid of Megara

Euclid of Megara was a Greek Socratic philosopher who founded the Megarian school of philosophy. He was a pupil of Socrates in the late 5th century BCE, and was present at his death. He held the supreme good to be one, eternal and unchangeable, and denied the existence of anything contrary to the...

. (Actually, it should have been Euclid of Alexandria; the two Euclids were frequently confused in the Renaissance.) The work included a lengthy preface by John Dee

John Dee (mathematician)

John Dee was an English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, imperialist and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. He devoted much of his life to the study of alchemy, divination and Hermetic philosophy....

, which surveyed all the existing branches of pure and applied mathematics. Dee also provided copious notes and other supplementary material. The work was printed in folio by John Day

John Day (printer)

John Day was an English Protestant printer. He specialised in printing and distributing Protestant literature and pamphlets, and produced many small-format religious books, such as ABCs, sermons, and translations of psalms...

, and included several three-dimensional fold-up diagrams illustrating solid geometry. Though not the very first, it was one of the first books to include such a feature.

The translation, renowned for its clarity and accuracy, was made from the Greek rather than the well-known Latin translation of Campanus

Campanus

Campanus can refer to:*Giovanni Antonio Campani called Campanus , Italian humanist.*Campanus of Novara , Italian astrologer, astronomer, and mathematician; also:**Campanus , a lunar crater named for him...

. Augustus De Morgan

Augustus De Morgan

Augustus De Morgan was a British mathematician and logician. He formulated De Morgan's laws and introduced the term mathematical induction, making its idea rigorous. The crater De Morgan on the Moon is named after him....

 has suggested that the translation was solely the work of Dee, but in his correspondence Dee states specifically that only the introduction and the supplementary material were his. Anthony Wood

Anthony Wood

Anthony Wood or Anthony à Wood was an English antiquary.-Early life:Anthony Wood was the fourth son of Thomas Wood , BCL of Oxford, where Anthony was born...

 asserted that the translation was largely the work of Whytehead, who spent his final years at Billingsley's house. Whytehead did apparently provide some assistance, but there is no evidence that the work is all his; Wood frequently reported gossip as fact. Billingsley's copy of Euclid found its way to Princeton College and Halsted described it, putting to rest the claims that the translation had been made from the Latin and that it was not Billingsley's own work.

Career

Billingsley prospered as a merchant. He was made sheriff

Sheriff

A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....

 of London in 1584 and alderman

Alderman

An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members themselves rather than by popular vote, or a council...

 of Tower Ward in 1585. He became one of Elizabeth's

Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...

 four customs collectors in 1589. In 1596, he succeeded Sir Thomas Skinner

Thomas Skinner (Lord Mayor of London, 1596)

Thomas Skinner was a master of the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers and a London Alderman. He was elected Sheriff in 1587 and Lord Mayor of London in 1596...

 as Lord Mayor of London. He was knighted the following year. In 1603, he sat in Parliament for London. He founded three scholarships for poor students at St. John's College and served as President of St. Thomas's Hospital. Though in the introduction of his Euclid he proposed to undertake other translations, he never did so.

Private Life

He married five times. The majority of his children were born to his first marriage to Elizabeth Bourne.

He purchased, with his son Henry, Doynton Manor, Gloucestershire c.1598 from Arthur Player of Westerleigh, who had acquired it in 1595. Another child was his daughter Elizabeth who married the cloth merchant, Sir John Quarles (not to be confused with the later poet John Quarles

John Quarles

John Quarles was an English poet.-Life:One of the eighteen children of Francis Quarles, he is said to have been born in Essex in 1624...

).

External links

• Several pictures of a copy of Billingsley's Euclid