Robert Recorde

Robert Recorde (about 1510 to 1558) was a Welsh physician and mathematician, remembered as the inventor of the equals sign. The second and last son of Thomas and Rose Recorde of Tenby in Pembrokeshire, he entered the University of Oxford about 1525 and became a Fellow of All Souls College in 1531. He took his medical degree at Cambridge in 1545, taught mathematics at Oxford, and later acted as physician to Edward VI and Mary I. He also served as controller of the Royal Mint and as Comptroller of Mines and Monies in Ireland. His books, written as dialogues between master and scholar, include The Grounde of Artes (1543), the first English book on algebra, and The Whetstone of Witte (1557), in which the equals sign first appeared in print. After being sued for defamation by a political enemy he was arrested for debt and died in the King's Bench Prison in 1558.