John Keill FRS was a Scottish mathematician, natural philosopher, and cryptographer who was an important defender of Isaac Newton.
12 Facts About John Keill
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2.
John Keill instructed his students on the laws of motion, the principles of hydrostatics and optics, and Newtonian propositions on light and colours.
3.
In 1698, John Keill published Examination of Dr Burnet's Theory of the Earth.
4.
John Keill's volume contained scientific attacks on Burnet, Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Thomas Hobbes and Nicolas Malebranche.
5.
However, after failing to get an academic appointment at Oxford in 1709, John Keill left the university to seek a government position.
6.
In 1709, John Keill was appointed treasurer of a charitable fund to resettle war refugees from the German states.
7.
John Keill accompanied at least one group of German refugees to the British Province of New York.
8.
In 1711, John Keill accepted the position of decypherer to Anne, Queen of Great Britain.
9.
John Keill's responsibilities included explaining old manuscripts to the sovereign.
10.
In 1712, John Keill returned to Oxford as Savilian Professor of Astronomy.
11.
In 1717, John Keill married Mary Clements, a woman 25 years his junior and the daughter of an Oxford bookbinder.
12.
John Keill's will is referenced in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and is held by The National Archives.