WILLIAMS, ZACHARIAH (1673 - 1755), medical practitioner, and inventor
Date of birth: 1673
Date of death: 1755
Child: Anna Williams
Gender: Male
Occupation: medical practitioner, and inventor
Area of activity: Business and Industry; Engineering, Construction, Naval Architecture and Surveying; Medicine
Author: Gwyn Jones
Father of Anna Williams. He was born at Rosemarket, Pembrokeshire, and practised for a time in South Wales. He was admitted a 'poor brother pensioner' of the Charterhouse, London, in 1729. His interests are indicated by the titles of his books: The Mariners Compass Compleated, 1740 and 1745; A True Narrative of certain Circumstances relating to Zachariah Williams in the Charterhouse, 1749; and Account of an Attempt to ascertain the Longitude at Sea by an exact Theory of the Variation of the Magnetical Needle, 1755. He had no luck with his discoveries, and accused Samuel Molyneux of stealing his plans. From December 1745 he was bedridden, and he died a disappointed man, 12 July 1755. Samuel Johnson took a great interest in him - see Powell's index to the Birkbeck Hill edition of Boswell.
Author
- Professor Gwyn Jones, (1907 - 1999)
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
- T. R. Roberts, Eminent Welshmen: a short biographical dictionary of Welshmen... from the earliest times to the present (1908)
Sources
Published date: 1959
Article Copyright: http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/
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