distinction under Henry V in his French campaigns, and was high sheriff of Yorkshire in 1442, and his son William was created a knight of the Bath by Henry VII at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1487. A descendant, Sir William Gascoigne, held the manor of Gawthorpe in the reign of Elizabeth; but on his death without male issue, it devolved on his heiress, Margaret, who by her marriage with Thomas Wentworth, high sheriff of Yorkshire in 1582, became the grandmother of Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford. By his second wife Gascoigne had one son, James, who acquired by marriage an estate at Cardington, Bedfordshire, where his posterity were settled for some generations.
[Gough's Sepulchral Monuments, ii. pt. ii. 37; Thoresby's Leeds (Whittaker), ii. 179; Drake's Eboracum, pp. 353, 354; Hunter's South Yorkshire, p. 484; Dugdale's Warwickshire (Thomas), ii. 856; Walsingham's Hist. Angl. (Rolls Ser.), ii. 334; Gest. Abb. Mon. Sanct. Alb. (Rolls Ser.), iii. 509; Coll. Top. et Gen. i. 302, 311, v. 4, vi. 394; Lysons' Mag. Brit. i. 64; Addit. MS. 28206, f. 13 b; Biog. Brit.; Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices; Foss's Lives of the Judges.]
GASCOIGNE, WILLIAM (1612?–1644), inventor of the micrometer, son of Henry Gascoigne, esq., of Thorpe-on-the-Hill, in the parish of Rothwell, near Leeds, Yorkshire, by his first wife, Margaret Jane, daughter of William Cartwright, was born not later than 1612. He resided with his father at Middleton, near Leeds, and acquired a remarkable knowledge of astronomy. Charles Townley, writing to Ralph Thoresby 16 Jan. 1698–9, mentions that Gascoigne was a correspondent of Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree, and adds: ‘It is to the mutual correspondence of this triumvirate that we owe the letters my brother Townley has of theirs, de re Astronomica. They are many and intricate, and he thinks not to be made use of, without particular hints or instructions from himself’ (Correspondence of Thoresby, i. 352). Gascoigne fell on the royalist side at the battle of Marston Moor on 2 July 1644. Aubrey's erroneous assertion (Lives of Eminent Men, p. 355), that at the time of his death he was ‘about the age of 24 or 25 at most,’ has been frequently repeated. Gascoigne left the manuscript of a treatise on optics ready for the press.
He invented methods of grinding glasses, and Sir Edward Sherburne states that he was the first who used two convex glasses in the telescope. When in 1666 Auzout announced his invention of the micrometer, Richard Townley, nephew of Christopher, presented Hook with a modification by himself of a similar instrument made by Gascoigne. A letter written by Crabtree to Horrocks in 1639 shows that Crabtree had seen Gascoigne use an instrument of the kind (Sherburne, Catalogue of Astronomers, pp. 92, 114). The instrument appears to have originally consisted either of two parallel wires or of two plates of metal placed in the focus of the eye-glass of a telescope, and capable of being moved so that the image of an object could be exactly comprehended between them. A scale served for the measurement of the angle subtended by the interval, and Gascoigne is said to have used this instrument for the purpose of measuring the diameters of the moon and planets, and also for determining the magnitudes or distances of terrestrial objects.
It is now generally admitted that Gascoigne was the original inventor of the wire micrometer, of its application to the telescope, and of the application of the telescope to the quadrant; though the invention was never promulgated, even in England, until the undoubtedly independent inventions of Auzout and Picard suggested its publication.
[Annual Register, iv. 196; Gent. Mag. ccxv. (1863), 760; Knight's Cyclopædia of Biography; Penny Cyclopædia; Phil. Trans. ii. 457, xlviii. 190; Taylor's Biog. Leodiensis, p. 86; Thoresby Correspondence, i. 349, 357, 387, ii. 302.]
GASCOYNE, Sir CRISP (1700–1761), lord mayor of London, youngest son of Benjamin and Anne Gascoyne, was born at Chiswick, and baptised in the parish church on 26 Aug. 1700. He set up in business as a brewer in Gravel Lane, Houndsditch (Osborn, Complete Guide, 1749, p. 137). His residence was at Barking in 1733, and the baptisms of his four youngest children are recorded there between 1733 and 1738. In 1755 he is described as of Mincing Lane, where he probably lived in the house of his father-in-law, Dr. Bamber, though still carrying on the brewhouse in Houndsditch in partnership with one Weston. Gascoyne was admitted a freeman of the Brewers' Company by redemption 17 Dec. 1741, he took the clothing of the livery 8 March 1744, fined for the offices of steward and the three grades of wardenship 19 Aug. 1746, and was elected an assistant 11 Oct. 1745, and master of the company for 1746–7.
He was elected alderman of Vintry ward 20 June 1745, and sworn into office on 2 July (Vintry Wardmote Book, Guildhall Library MS. 68). He served the office of sheriff of London and Middlesex in 1747–8. In December 1748 he took a prominent part, at the head of the committee of city lands, in
