ment that met on 19 March 1603-4. He died 22 Nov. 1606, and was buried in the church of St. Catharine Coleman. To the poor of that parish he bequeathed 200l. In 1591 he had already founded three scholarships at St. John's College, Cambridge, for poor students, and had given to the college for their maintenance two messuages and tenements in Tower Street and in Mark Lane, Allhallows Barking (Baker, St. John's College, ed. Mayor, i. 434).
Billingsley published in 1570 the first translation of Euclid's 'Elements of Geometry' that had appeared in English. His original was the Latin version attributed to Campanus, which had been first printed in 1482, and again in 1509. A lengthy essay on mathematical science from the pen of Dr. John Dee prefaced the volume, and De Morgan has suggested that Dee, and not Billingsley, was the actual author of the translation. Dee, however, in his autobiographical tracts, distinctly states that, besides the introduction, he only contributed 'divers and many Annotations and Inventions Mathematicall added in sundry places of the foresaid English Euclide after the tenth booke of the same' (Miscellanies of Chetham Soc. i. 73). Wood asserts that Whytehead, Billingsley's Oxford tutor, who lived during his old age in Billingsley's house, bequeathed to his old pupil a valuable collection of manuscripts, which Billingsley utilised in his 'Elements of Geometrie.' In his prefatory address Billingsley makes no mention of assistance, but promises to translate, if his first effort is well received, 'other good authors both pertaining to religion (as partly I have already done), and also pertaining to Mathematicall Artes.' But this promise was never fulfilled. Two letters from Billingsley to Lord Burghley on matters connected with the London customs are among the Lansdowne MSS. (62 No. 19, 67 No. 88), and several documents at the Record Office dealing with his official duties between 1590 and the date of his death bear his signature. One of these papers, dated 11 Nov. 1604, consists of observations on the danger of decay in shipping, and in the exportation of English cloth (Cal. State Papers, 1603-10, p. 166). Billingsley was a member was a member of the Society of Antiquaries founded by Archbishop Parker in 1572 (Archæologia, i. 20).
Billingsley was twice married, (1) in 1572 to Elizabeth Boome, 'who died in 1577, aged 35, and (2) to Bridget, second daughter of Sir Christopher Draper, who was lord mayor in 1566. By his first wife he had a large family. His eldest son, Henry, was knighted by James I on 28 June 1603, and entertained Queen Anne in 1613 at his house at Liston, Gloucestershire, which his father had purchased in 1698 (Nichols, Progresses of James I, i. 192, ii. 647, 666).
[Cooper's Athenæ Cantab, ii. 442; Wood's Oxon., ed. Bliss, i. 762; Chalmers's Biog. Dict.; Cal. Dom. State Papers from 1690 to 1606.]
BILLINGSLEY, JOHN, the elder (1626–1684), divine, was born at Chatham, Kent, on 14 Sept. 1626. Wood says 'he was educated mostly in St. John's College, Cambridge, but, coming with the rout to Oxon to obtain preferment on the visitation made by the parliament in 1648, he was fortunate to be supplied with a Kentish fellowship of Corpus Christi College, Oxford (as having been born in that county).' In 1649 he was 'incorporate' B. A., and ordained on 26 Sept. of that year in the church of St. Andrew Undershaft, London.
While in residence at Oxford he used to act as an evangelist in the neighbourhood, preaching with uncommon force. 'At length (Calamy and Palmer tell us) 'he had a call into one of the remote and dark corners of the kingdom to preach the gospel.' This he did 'very assiduously, viz. at Addingham in Cumberland.' He instituted catechising, and joined a county association for revival of the 'scriptural discipline of particular churches.' Thence he removed to Chesterfield in Derbyshire, which Anthony à Wood thought to be his first charge. He had many disputations with the disciples of George Fox. He published 'Strong Comforts for Weak Christians, with due Cautions against Presumption. Being the substance of several lectures lately preached at Chesterfield in Derbyshire, 1656;' 'The grand Quaker proved a gross Liar; or a Short Reply to a little Pamphlet entitled A Dispute between James Naylor and the Parish Teacher of Chesterfield by a Challenge against him,' &c., printed with 'Strong Comforts.' George Fox himself replied to Billingsley in 'The great Mystery of the great Whore unfolded, and Anti-Christ's Kingdom revealed with Destruction,' 1659.
As his reputation grew, he 'had great temptations from (increased) secular advantages and the importunity of friends to have quitted' Chesterfield; but 'he wonld not yield to a thought of leaving that people, who were dear to him as his own soul, and it was in his heart to live and die with them.' He was one of the two thousand deprived in 1662. He continued to labour among his parishioners in private, as he found opportunity. He was silenced by the act of 1664 against conventicles. He retired to
