Degory Wheare

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Degory Wheare, also spelt Digory Whear (the first name can be Latinized as Degoreus or Digoreus) (born in Jacobstow, Cornwall, 1573– died in Oxford 1647) was an historian, the first Camden Professor of Ancient History in the University of Oxford.

He was an Oxford friend of Charles Fitzgeoffrey. He was nominated the first holder of the Chair of Ancient History founded by William Camden, which Wheare occupied from 1622 until his death in 1647.

His most significant work was entitled De Ratione et Methodo Legendi Historias (Of the Reason for and Method of Reading Histories) published in October 1623. ^[1]This was in origin his inaugural address for the new chair, in which he laid out a schema for the study of secular history, which found such a positive response that it went through many editions and expansions in the next decades.