John Pell 1611-1685

John PELL 1611-1685

Biographical Note

Born at Southwick, Sussex, son of John Pell. BA Trinity College, Cambridge 1628, MA 1630; he was celebrated for his learning, and knowledge of languages. He was a schoolmaster in Sussex 1630-38, when he moved to London to teach mathematics there. In 1643 he was appointed professor of mathematics at the academy at Amsterdam, moving to Breda in 1646; he returned to England in 1652 and had a brief spell sent to Switzerland on a diplomatic mission to protestant leaders there. He was ordained in 1661 and held a number of ecclesiastical preferments thereafter, including as chaplain to Gilbert Sheldon as Archbishop of Canterbury. He was one of the first fellows of the Royal Society and became a vice-president in 1677. He published numerous mathematical publications but was noted for his financial ineptitude, and was twice imprisoned for debt. After the Restoration he spent some time living under the roof of his former pupil William Brereton, 3rd Baron Brereton, but after the latter's death in 1680 he lived in increasingly poor conditions in London, where he died.

Books

Pell inherited a significant library from his father, and acquired books throughout his life, subject to his financial circumstances. An inventory of his library made in 1687 lists 690 books (which may not represent his entire library); it includes many mathematical and scientific works, and reflects Pell's range of language skills (it includes Turkish, Hebrew and Ethiopic grammars). Books acquired from the Restoration onwards were all printed in London or Oxford, but earlier acquisitions cover a more international range of imprints. The library was purchased en bloc after Pell's death by Richard Busby, Headmaster of Westminster School, and over 300 of Pell's books can be traced in the School Library today. Pell's surviving manuscripts and papers are held at the British Library.

Characteristic Markings

Many of Pell's books are extensively annotated by him, with motes, marginalia, underlinings and corrections. They are often bound in plain parchment (with later green goatskin title labels added, probably in the eighteenth century).

Sources

• Scriba, Christoph J. "Pell, John (1611–1685), mathematician." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
• Wells, Elizabeth, 'All my best bookes': the libraries of Dr Richard Busby and Dr John Pell, in Adams, R. and Glomski, J (eds), Seventeenth-century libraries, Leiden, 2023, 215-32.