Joseph Moxon

Joseph Moxon, who lived from 1627 to 1691, was an English printer who specialised in mathematical books and maps, a maker of globes and mathematical instruments, and a mathematical lexicographer. Born in Wakefield, he learned the basics of printing as a boy in Delft and Rotterdam, where his father was printing English Bibles. After the First English Civil War he and his brother started a printing business in London, and in 1652 he began selling large celestial and terrestrial globes; in England he is considered the inventor of pocket globes. He was appointed hydrographer to Charles II in 1662 and theorised that the Arctic was ice free and that the Northwest Passage would be found by sailing near the North Pole, views that later influenced Captain Cook's third voyage. His Mechanick Exercises, issued from 1677, gave detailed instructions to printers and tradesmen, and his mathematical dictionary Mathematicks made easie was the first English-language dictionary devoted to mathematics. In November 1678 he became the first tradesman elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.