Person: Greaves, John

John Greaves was an English mathematician who was interested in measuring ancient monuments.

John senior was a priest who was both the rector of Colmer and also a respected schoolteacher.
At Merton he became a friend of the Savilian professors Henry Briggs and John Bainbridge.
With support from John Bainbridge and Peter Turner, Greaves was appointed as Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London, in February 1631.
Greaves set out on his travels in 1637, along with Edward Pococke.
Two of the projects that he attempted were suggested to him by John Bainbridge.
This Greaves did successfully, except that he unfortunately miscalculated the latitude of Rhodes.
This Greaves attempted to organise while he was in Istanbul, but although he carried out the necessary observations of the eclipse in Istanbul himself, he did not manage to arrange the simultaneous observations.
By early in the year 1640 Greaves had returned to London but he was dismissed from his Gresham professorship for having neglected the duties of the position.
Greaves published an edition of Bainbridge's Canicularia in 1648 adding observations which had been made by Ulugh Beg.
However, Greaves was a supporter of the King, and as a Royalist he was in trouble after the events of the civil war.
Greaves was dismissed from the Savilian chair but he was not too unhappy as it was given to his friend Seth Ward.
Greaves went to London where he continued his research into Egyptology, staying with John Marsham who was himself an expert Egyptologist.
Greaves died about a year later.

Born 1602, Alresford, Hampshire, England. Died 8 October 1652, London, England.

View full biography at MacTutor

Astronomy, Origin England

Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0!

O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive