Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Olinthus Gregory

GREGORY, Olinthus, LL.D. (1774-1841), was born 29th January 1774 at Yaxley, in Huntingdonshire. He was only nineteen when he published Lessons Astronomical and Philosophical (1793), and soon after, by a manuscript on the " Use of the Sliding Rule," he was fortunate enough to excite the interest of Dr Button, professor of mathe matics at the Royal Military Academy of Woolwich. Having settled at Cambridge in 1798, Gregory first acted as subeditor of a provincial newspaper, and then opened a bookseller s shop ; but before long he found that he would be better off as a private teacher of mathematics. In 1802 he obtained an appointment as mathematical master at Woolwich through the influence of Hutton ; and when Hutton resigned in 1807, Gregory succeeded him in the professorship. Failing health obliged him to retire in 1838, and he died at Woolwich 2d February 1841. Of Gregory s numerous mathematical works it is enough to men tion Hints for the Use of Teachers of Elementary Mathematics (1840; new edition, 1853), and Mathematics for Practical Men (1825), which was revised and enlarged by Henry Law in 1848, and again by J. E. Young in 1862. His Letters on the Evidences of Chris tianity (1815) have been several times reprinted, and an abridg ment was published by the Eeligious Tract Society in 1853. He will probably be longest remembered for his Biography of Robert Hall, which first appeared in the collected edition of Hall s works, was published separately in 1833, and has since passed through several editions. The minor importance of his Memoir of Joint Mason Good (1828) is due to the narrower fame of the subject. Gregory was one of the founders of the Eoyal Astronomical Society. In 1802 he was appointed editor of the Gentlemen s Diary, and in 1818 editor of the Ladies Diary and superintendent of the almanacs of the Stationers Company.