Walter Warner

Walter Warner (1563 to 1643) was an English mathematician and scientist, born in Leicestershire and educated at Merton College, Oxford, where he took his bachelor's degree in 1578. At the end of the sixteenth century he belonged to the circle around Henry Percy, ninth Earl of Northumberland, the Wizard Earl, whose three magi were Warner, Thomas Harriot and Robert Hues, and Percy paid him a retainer, twenty pounds a year in 1595 and forty from 1607, to help with alchemical experiments. He was also close to the group around Sir Walter Raleigh, and at that time was known chiefly for chemical and medical interests. After Percy died he was supported by the tenth earl and by Sir Thomas Aylesbury. In 1631 he edited Harriot's Artis Analyticae Praxis. Through Sir Charles Cavendish he met Thomas Hobbes, with whom he discussed refraction in 1634, and his links with Robert Payne tie him to the Welbeck Academy.