Henry Sutton (ca. 1637-1665) was an English instrument maker who operated out of

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

from 1650 to 1661. He is known for his high-quality engravings of

scales Scale or scales may refer to: Mathematics * Scale (descriptive set theory), an object defined on a set of points * Scale (ratio), the ratio of a linear dimension of a model to the corresponding dimension of the original * Scale factor, a number w ...

and

quadrants Quadrant may refer to: Companies * Quadrant Cycle Company, 1899 manufacturers in Britain of the Quadrant motorcar * Quadrant (motorcycles), one of the earliest British motorcycle manufacturers, established in Birmingham in 1901 * Quadrant Privat ...

. His colleagues included Samuel Knibb (1625-1674) and John Marke (17th century). He was described in the 18th century by Edmund Stone thus: "Mr Sutton's Quadrants, made above one hundred Years ago, are the finest divided Instruments in the World; and the Regularity and Exactness of the vast Number of Circles drawn upon them is highly delightful to behold". Little is known of Sutton's life beyond his mathematical contributions. He died of the plague in 1665. His place of work and the range of his stock can be determined from the following advertisement, written on a quadrant dated 1658: "This Instrument or any of the Mathematiques are made in Brass or Wood by Henry Sutton Instrument maker behind the royall exchange". The Royal Exchange, which is now a shopping complex, was a major landmark in mid 17th-century London, having been built in the 1560s as a centre for merchants and tradesmen to do business. Sutton's shop on

Threadneedle Street Threadneedle Street is a street in the City of London, England, between Bishopsgate at its northeast end and Bank junction in the southwest. It is one of nine streets that converge at Bank. It lies in the ward of Cornhill. History The stree ...

behind the Exchange would have been an important location for mathematical practitioners; not only did he make and sell instruments, he also collaborated on their design and sold mathematical books. One of his instruments includes the name of

Euclid Speidell Euclid Speidell (died 1702) was an English customs official and mathematics teacher known for his writing on logarithms. Speidell published revised and expanded versions of texts by his father, John Speidell. He also published a book called ''Logari ...

, a mathematical teacher and writer also based in London. The Oxford Museum of the History of Science has acquired two of his quadrants along with a small amount of his prints, and cites him as "perhaps the most talented and original mathematical instrument maker in London in the middle of the seventeenth century".

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* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sutton, Henry British scientific instrument makers 1637 births 1665 deaths Businesspeople from London