Collins, John
Collins, John
ACHIEVEMENTS:
Promoter of scientific knowledge
NICKNAME/ALIAS:
None
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH:
5 March 1625, Wood Eaton, near Oxford, England
DATE AND PLACE OF DEATH AND AGE AT DEATH:
10 November 1683, London, England. Aged 58
DISCIPLINE:
Mathematician
FIELD:
Mathematics
LANGUAGE:
English
PARENTS:
Father: Name unknown
Mother: Name unknown
SIBLINGS:
Unknown
SPOUSE:
Miss Austen
CHILDREN:
7
EDUCATION:
Local grammar school
MAJOR WORK:
None
LIFE AND TIMES:
Collins was removed from school when his father, a Freechurch minister, died and left him an orphan. He was apprenticed to a bookseller in Oxford but was then obliged to take work as a kitchen clerk in the Prince of Wales's court.
When Civil War broke out in England in 1642, Collins went to sea. He spent most of the next seven years in the Mediterranean, on board an English trading ship in the service of Venice against the Turks. In his spare time, Collins studied mathematics and business accounting.
When he returned to England in 1649 he became a math teacher in London. In 1652 he published "An Introduction to Merchants' Accounts" which he had written as a teaching aid. He also wrote navigational papers: "The Sector on a Quadrant" with an appendix on "Reflected Dyalling, from a Glass however posited" (1658), "The Description and Uses of a general Quadrant" (1658), "Geometricall Dyalling" (1659) and "The Mariner's Plain
Scale new Plained.” (1659). This last was dedicated to the East India Company* and became very popular as a textbook on navigation.
When the monarchy was restored in 1660 Collins was appointed to a number of minor government posts as an accountant in Customs and the Chancery and as secretary to the Council of Plantations. His most valuable work, however, was his networking within the new scientific community and his energetic promotion of other people's work.
In 1662 he met the mathematician Isaac Barrow* for the first time and was later responsible for the publication of Barrow's works. Despite his own lack of formal education, and his rather undistinguished work (most of it derivative), Collins was elected fellow of the Royal Society* in 1677.
He corresponded with eminent scientists like Newton*, David Gregory*, Wallis*, Flamsteed* and Barrow in England and, through Oldenburg*, with others on the continent including Leibniz* and Christiaan Huyghens*. He once persuaded Newton to lend Barrow his telescope, which Barrow took to the Royal Society to demonstrate.
In 1672 he took a job as manager of the Farthing Office, which brought with it a house in the London business district. Collins hoped to set up there as a printer and to write a book on the new advances in mathematical sciences. This plan came to nothing when he lost his job and had to work as an accountant for the Royal Fishery Company in order to meet his family obligations.
He wrote several pamphlets on trade matters and published a discourse in 1680 in which he suggested banning the import of fish caught by foreigners, and proposed various measures for the improvement of the tin, fishery and other industries. Trade was a hot issue at the time with people like Dudley North* arguing for free trade and others suggesting government measures to regulate trade and industry. Collins wrote a treatise in 1682 entitled "Salt and Fishery" which detailed ways of preparing salt, catching, salting and cooking fish and meat, and proposed measures for the relief of salt
workers.
An enlarged edition of his ‘Doctrine of Decimal Arithmetick,’ (originally pub. 1664) the preparation of which had engaged his attention during about a year before his death, appeared in 1685. His ‘Arithmetic in whole Numbers and Fractions, both Vulgar and Decimal, with Tables for the Forbearance and Rebate of Money,’ was published by Thomas Plant in 1688.
ASSESSMENT: Collins kept up an extensive correspondence, which did much to promote new scientific learning and ensure its dissemination.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: None
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
DNB. DSB.