Vincent Wing

Vincent Wing was an English astrologer and astronomer who lived from 1619 to 1668 and earned his living as a land surveyor. Born at North Luffenham in Rutland, he received no university education but taught himself Latin, Greek and mathematics, and he invented or developed the forty-link two-pole chain for measuring land, a method he explained and advocated in his books. With William Leybourn he wrote Urania Practica, published in 1649, the first substantial compendium of astronomy written in English. His Harmonicon Coeleste of 1651 marked a move toward more modern astronomical ideas, and Isaac Newton owned and annotated a copy. His Astronomia Instaurata of 1656 led to a long dispute with Thomas Streete over errors in their tables, which Wing answered in 1665 with his Examen Astronomiae Carolinae. He also published astrological predictions and corresponded with William Lilly.