Gellibrand, Henry

1. Dates

Born: London, 17 Nov. 1597

Died: London, 16 Feb. 1636

Dateinfo: Dates Certain

Lifespan: 39

2. Father

Occupation: Physician

Henry Gellibrand was a graduate of Oxford and for a time a fellow of All Souls. After 1602 he was a physician in Maidstone, Kent. The father died in 1615.

I always assume that physicians were affluent at least. In fact the father left a considerable estate; our Henry was his sole heir. However, a reference below to Henry's small patrimony (which could have been in error, to be sure) leads me to list the family circumstances merely as affluent. It is surely relevant that Gellibrand entered Oxford as a commoner.

3. Nationality

Birth: English

Career: English

Death: English

4. Education

Schooling: Oxford, M.A.

Oxford University, Trinity College, 1615-23. B.A., 1619. M.A., 1623.

5. Religion

Affiliation: Calvinist

Gellibrand was in holy orders; he held a curacy in Kent before 1623. In 1631, when he published an almanac with definite Puritan hues, Laud attempted to prosecute him.

6. Scientific Disciplines

Primary: Navigation, Magnetism

Subordinate: Mathematics, Astronomy

Gellibrand discovered the secular change in magnetic declination.

He attempted to solve the problem of longitude. His "Appendix concerning Longitude" in Thomas James, Strange and Dangerous Voyage, 1633, attempted to draw on observable celestial events as a means to establish longitude. His Epitome of Navigation appeared in 1698, long after his death.

Gellibrand completed Briggs' Trigonometria britannica, 1633.

Institution Trigonometrical, 1638, a text. In 1652 (posthumous) a longer work of tthe same name in Latin, with applications to navigation and astronomy, a work much used in its English translation.

He composed "Astronomia lunaris," which survived in manuscript.

He is reported to have written a Treatise of Building of Ships.

7. Means of Support

Primary: Personal Means, Academia

Secondary: Church Life

Temporary curacy at Chiddingstone, Kent, 1620s.

It is said that Gellibrand settled in Oxford as a young man (by inference after his M.A.) and became there a friend of Henry Briggs. There is no information on how he supported himself in this period. However, the letter from Trinity College, supporting his nomination to be Gresham Professor, spoke of his being satisfied with his small patrimony (I now have doubt that the patrimony was small) in order that the pursuit of preferment not interefere with his studies.

Professor of astronomy at Gresham College, 1626-36.

8. Patronage

Type: Scientist

Owed the professorship to Henry Briggs.

9. Technological Involvement

Type: Navigation

Applied mathematics in navigation.

10. Scientific Societies

Memberships: None

Informal Connections: A close friend of Henry Briggs; he completed Briggs' unfinished Trigonometria Britannica and published it in 1633.

Sources

1. Dictionary of National Biography (repr., London: Oxford University Press, 1949-1950), 7, 996-7. Biographia Britannica, 1st ed. (London, 1747-66), 4, 2188-91.
2. John Ward, The Lives of the Professors of Gresham College, facsimile ed. (New York, 1967), pp. 81-5, 336.
3. Anthony à Wood, Athenae oxonienses (Fasti oxonienses is attached, with separate pagination, to the Athenae), 4 vols. (London, 1813-20), 2, 622-3. John H. Raach, "Five Early 17th-Century English Country Physicians," Journal of Medical History, 20 (1965), 213-25.

Compiled by:

Richard S. Westfall

Department of History and Philosophy of Science

Indiana University

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