Edmund Gunter
1581 The son of a Welshman of Gunterstown in Brecknockshire, he was born in Herefordshire, but was educated at Westminster School and Christ's College, Oxford, taking the degrees of B.A., M.A. and B.D.,
1926 Obituary
"On December 10th,1626, there died in the Old Gresham College in Bishops-gate Street the Rev. Edmund Gunter, known to all land surveyors for his invention of the "Gunter's Chain." Since 1615 Gunter had been the incumbent of St George's, Southwark, then surrounded by the Marshalsea, the King's Bench, and other prisons, and since 1619 he had also been Gresham Professor of Astronomy. He was a distinguished mathematician, the friend of Henry Briggs, and in 1620 published the first printed table of artificial sines and tangents. The work was entitled "Canon Triangulorum, Sive Tabulae Sinuum Prima Quadrantis." To astronomers Gunter is also known for his invention of the sector and a portable quadrant, while he was the discoverer of the alteration in the variation of the magnetic compass..." Read more (p 590).