William Eldred was an English gunner, the master gunner of Dover Castle

Dover Castle

Dover Castle is a medieval castle in the town of the same name in the English county of Kent. It was founded in the 12th century and has been described as the "Key to England" due to its defensive significance throughout history...

 and author of a treatise on gunnery

Gunnery

Gunnery may refer to:* The use of guns or the study of how to apply the techniques and procedures of operating them* The Gunnery, a coeducational prep school in Connecticut, United States...

.

Life

Eldred was born about 1563, and lived to an old age, signing as a freeholder of Dover

Dover

Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...

 the Kentish petition for the reformation of the liturgy

Liturgy

Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...

 in 1641. It would appear possible that he was a relation of John Eldred and of Thomas Eldred

Thomas Eldred

Thomas Eldred was an English merchant and mariner. He is notable for having sailed with Thomas Cavendish on the ship Desire, during the second English circumnavigation of the globe between 1586 and 1588....

, but no identification is possible.

Works

He was author of 'The Gunner's Glasse, wherein the diligent Practitioner may see his defects, and may from point to point reform and amend all errors that are commonly incident to unskilful gunners,' 1646. The book is an account of the great gun exercise as then in vogue. The dedication to the Earl of Warwick says that he had spent the greatest part of his time in Dover Castle; and that he had been a gunner for about sixty years. In the body of the work he mentions incidentally that he had served also as a gunner in the Low Countries and in Germany.

External links

• The Gunner's Glass