Norwood, Richard

Born Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England, 1590

Died Bermuda, 1675

Richard Norwood was notable for his works on navigation and surveying. He wrote an autobiographical journal in 1639 in which he described his father (Edward?) as a gentleman who had suffered financial adversity. After Richard’s formal schooling ended, he was apprenticed to a fishmonger at age 15. Contact with seafaring men started him on a series of voyages and adventures and initiated his devotion to the study of navigation, which he pursued by studying every book on the subject that came his way. Norwood married Rachel Boughton in 1622; of their four children, their second son, Matthew, followed his father’s interests.

In the seventeenth century, much effort in astronomy and mathematics was motivated by the practical needs of navigation and surveying, areas to which Norwood made notable contributions. He carried out the first survey of Bermuda in 1614/1615, taught mathematics in London from 1627 to 1637, and, in a futile...