A seventeenth-century teacher of geometry, who christened his son Euclid

In England from the middle of the sixteenth century the rapidly developing changes in navigation, cartography, surveying, and gunnery demanded the development of new systems and new skill in these areas. Books by mathematical practitioners were rapidly followed by instrument makers, who developed, designed and produced the new mathematical instruments that were needed to make the observations, measurements and calculations required by the new systems. There also arose a demand for teachers to instruct those who needed it in the use of the new systems and the new instruments. The mathematicians John Dee (1527–1609) and Thomas Harriot (c. 1650–1621) were employed by the newly founded exploration companies to instruct their mariners in the latest developments in navigation and cartography needed on their voyages of discovery. Attempts were made to institutionalise such teaching, The appointment of Thomas Hood (1556–1620) as the first Mathematicall Lecturer to the Citie of London, in…