William Whiston
Born: 9 Dec 1667 in Norton, Leicestershire,
England
Died: 22 Aug 1752 in Lyndon, Rutland,
England
William Whiston was taught by his father until he was 17 when he went to school in Tamworth. In 1686, after two years of school, he entered Clare College, Cambridge. He was very poor since his father died shortly before he went to university.
William attended Newton's lectures while at Cambridge and he showed great promise in mathematics. He obtained his B.A. in 1690, then obtained a fellowship in 1691, two years later he was awarded an M.A. and was ordained in the same year. He was encouraged by David Gregory at this time to study Newton's Principia. He returned to Cambridge, intending to take mathematics pupils, but ill health made him give up teaching.
From 1694 to 1698 he was chaplain to the bishop of Norwich. During this period he wrote A New Theory of the Earth (1696), in which he claimed that the biblical stories of the creation, flood etc. could be explained scientifically as descriptions of events with historical bases. For example he claimed that the biblical flood was due to a comet hitting the Earth, an interesting theory given the current interest in theories of this type.
In 1698 he obtained a vicarage in Suffolk at Lowestoft-with-Kissingland. He was appointed assistant to Newton at Cambridge from 1701 and published an edition of Euclid for student use at this time. He fell out with Newton over Bible chronology. His cosmology involved direct intervention by God.
In 1703 he succeeded Newton as Lucasian professor. He lectured on mathematics and natural philosophy and, after Roger Cotes was appointed to the Plumian professorship in 1706, with strong recommendations from Whiston, they undertook joint research.
Whiston came to believe that the doctrine of the Trinity was incorrect. His views were not popular and he was deprived of his chair in 1710. He went to London where a court was set up by the lord chancellor but, after the death of Queen Anne, proceedings against him were dropped.
He was now poor and lived off the income of a small farm near Newmarket. He lectured in the coffee-houses of London, being one of the first to lecture making science experiments during the lectures. He tried hard to solve the problem of the longitude; there was a lot of money in that but he never succeeded.
He left the Church of England in 1747 and joined the Baptists. His publications were mostly on religious topics with a small number of mathematical ones.