Lawrence Rooke

Lawrence Rooke (also Laurence) (1622–1662) was an English astronomer and mathematician. He was also one of the founders of the Royal Society, although he died as it was being formally constituted.

Life

He was born in Deptford, and was a great-nephew through his mother of Lancelot Andrewes.[1]

He was educated at Eton College and King's College, Cambridge, where he graduated M.A. in 1647.[2] He became a fellow commoner at Wadham College, Oxford in 1650, having dropped out of academia for a period because of bad health.[3][4] At Wadham he worked closely with John Wilkins and Seth Ward.[1]

He became Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College in 1652, and then Professor of Geometry there, in 1657, an appointment in which Oliver Cromwell took an interest.[3][5]

He was unpublished in his lifetime, but left papers on longitude and the moons of Jupiter that were published posthumously. He also wrote advice for sailors and travellers, on the correct way to record observations on their travels, appearing in an early issue of the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions.[6]

Notes

  1. ^ a b C. A. Ronan, Laurence Rooke (1622–1662), Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 15, (Jul., 1960), pp. 113–118.
  2. ^ Rooke, Lawrence in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press, 10 vols, 1922–1958.
  3. ^ a b Concise Dictionary of National Biography
  4. ^ Andrew Pyle (editor), Dictionary of Seventeenth Century British Philosophers (2000), p. 691.
  5. ^ Christopher Hill, God's Englishman (1972 edition), pp. 250–1.
  6. ^ Michael McKeon, The Origins of the English Novel, 1600–1740 (2002), p. 102.

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