27 Facts About William Oughtred

William Oughtred is credited with inventing the slide rule in about 1622.

William Oughtred had a passion for mathematics, and would often stay awake at nights to learn while others were sleeping.

William Oughtred composed a Funeral Ode in Latin for Sir William More of Loseley Park in 1600.

William Oughtred's wife was a niece of Simon Caryll of Tangley and his wife Lady Elizabeth Aungier, daughter of Sir Francis Aungier.

William Oughtred was a witness to Simon Caryll's will, made 1618, and through two further marriages Elizabeth remained matriarch and dowager of Great Tangley until her death in about 1650.

William Oughtred praised Gerald as a man of great piety and learning, skilled in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and other oriental languages.

William Oughtred therefore remained at Albury, serving as rector there for fifty years.

William Lilly, that celebrated astrologer, knew Oughtred and claimed in his autobiography to have intervened on his behalf to prevent his ejection from his living by Parliament in 1646:.

William Oughtred died at Albury in 1660, a month after the restoration of Charles II.

William Oughtred was buried in Old St Peter and St Paul's Church, Albury.

William Oughtred developed his interest in mathematics early in life, and devoted whatever spare time his academic studies allowed him to it.

In London, in spring 1618, William Oughtred visited his friend Henry Briggs at Gresham College, and was introduced to Edmund Gunter, Reader in Astronomy, then occupying Dr Brooks's rooms.

William Oughtred showed Gunter his "Horizontall Instrument", who questioned him closely about it and spoke very approvingly.

William Oughtred Alabaster wrote to him in 1633 to propose the quadrature of the circle by consideration of the fourth chapter of the Book of Ezekiel.

William Oughtred offered free mathematical tuition to pupils, among them Richard Delamain and Jonas Moore, and his teaching influenced a generation of mathematicians.

William Oughtred discussed two ways to perform long division and introduced the "~" symbol, in terms of mathematics, expressing the difference between two variables.

Wallis wrote the introduction to his 1652 edition, and used it to publicise his skill as cryptographer; in another, William Oughtred promoted the talents of Wren.

William Oughtred gave free instruction there to Richard Delamaine, whom he found to be too dependent on mathematical instruments to get a proper grasp of the theory behind them.

Longer verses addressed to William Oughtred are prefixed by Christopher Wase.

Gunter required the use of a pair of dividers to lay off distances on his rule; William Oughtred made the step of sliding two rules past each other to achieve the same ends.

At the age of 23, William Oughtred invented the double horizontal sundial, now named the William Oughtred type after him.

William Oughtred was well-acquainted with the astrologer William Lilly who, as noted above, helped to prevent his ejection from his living in 1646.

William Oughtred adds that Oughtred was an astrologer, and successful in the use of natal astrology, and used to say that he did not know why it should be effective, but believed that some "genius" or "spirit" assisted.

Aubrey suggests that William Oughtred was happy to allow the country people to believe that he was capable of conjuring.

William Oughtred reported that Oughtred had told Bishop Ward and Elias Ashmole that he had received sudden intuitions or solutions to problems when standing in particular places, or leaning against a particular oak or ash tree, "as if infused by a divine genius", after having pondered those problems unsuccessfully for months or years.

The biography of Ashmole in the Biographia Britannica called forth the supposition that William Oughtred was a participant in Ashmole's admission to freemasonry in 1646.

William Oughtred's name is remembered in the William Oughtred Society, a group formed in the United States in 1991 for collectors of slide rules.