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John Kersey the elder (1616–1677) was an 
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems.
Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change.
History
On ...
, as well as a textbook writer.
Life
He was son of Anthony Carsaye or Kersey and Alice Fenimore, and was baptised atBodicote
Bodicote is a village and civil parish about south of the centre of Banbury in Oxfordshire. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 2,126.
History
Bodicote was made a separate civil and Church of England parish in 1855. Until the ...
, near Banbury
Banbury is a historic market town on the River Cherwell in Oxfordshire, South East England. It had a population of 54,335 at the 2021 Census.
Banbury is a significant commercial and retail centre for the surrounding area of north Oxfordshir ...
, Oxfordshire, on 23 November 1616. He came to London, and gained a livelihood as a teacher. At first (1650) he lived at the corner house (opposite to the White Lion) in Charles Street, near the piazza in Covent Garden, but afterwards moved to Chandos Street, St Martin's Lane.
Kersey obtained a wide reputation as a teacher of mathematics. At one time he was tutor to the sons of Sir Alexander Denton of Hillesden House, Buckinghamshire. They were both future public figures ( Sir Edmund Denton, 1st Baronet as a Member of Parliament for Buckingham, as his father had been, and Alexander Denton as a judge, as well as MP for Buckingham after Edmund).''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
'', Denton, Alexander (bap. 1679, d. 1740), judge, by J. H. Baker.
Works
He was acquainted with John Collins, who persuaded him to write his work onalgebra
Algebra () is one of the broad areas of mathematics. Roughly speaking, algebra is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for manipulating these symbols in formulas; it is a unifying thread of almost all of mathematics.
Elementary ...
. He was a friend of Edmund Wingate
Edmund Wingate (1596–1656) was an English mathematical and legal writer, one of the first to publish in the 1620s on the principle of the slide rule, and later the author of some popular expository works. He was also a Member of Parliament duri ...
, and edited the second edition of his ''Arithmetic'' in 1650, and subsequent issues till 1683.
To his pupils Edmund and Alexander Denton he dedicated his first and principal original work, ''The Elements of that Mathematical Art, commonly called Algebra'', in two folio volumes, dated respectively 1673 and 1674. Both John Wallis and Collins expected much of this work and on its publication it became a standard authority. It was mentioned in the '' Philosophical Transactions'', and was commended by Charles Hutton
Charles Hutton FRS FRSE LLD (14 August 1737 – 27 January 1823) was a British mathematician and surveyor. He was professor of mathematics at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich from 1773 to 1807. He is remembered for his calculation of the ...
. Kersey's method of algebra was employed in ''Cocker's Arithmetick
''Cocker's Arithmetick'', also known by its full title "Cocker's Arithmetick: Being a Plain and Familiar Method Suitable to the Meanest Capacity for the Full Understanding of That Incomparable Art, As It Is Now Taught by the Ablest School-Masters ...
'', edition of 1703. The eighth edition of Wingate was edited by Kersey in 1683; in the tenth, published in 1699, he is spoken of as 'late teacher of the Mathematicks'.
See also
*John Kersey the younger
John Kersey the younger (fl. 1720) was an English philologist and lexicographer of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. He is notable for editing three dictionaries in his lifetime: '' A New English Dictionary'' (1702), a revised ...
, his son.
Notes
References
* 1616 births 1677 deaths 17th-century English writers 17th-century English male writers People from Banbury 17th-century English mathematicians {{UK-mathematician-stub