William Derham

William Derham (1657 to 1735) was an English clergyman, natural theologian, natural philosopher and scientist who produced the earliest reasonably accurate measurement of the speed of sound. Born at Stoulton in Worcestershire, he was educated at Blockley and at Trinity College, Oxford, was ordained in 1681 and served as vicar of Wargrave and then, from 1689 to 1735, rector of Upminster in Essex, becoming a canon of Windsor in 1716. His Artificial Clockmaker appeared in 1696, and his teleological works Physico-Theology (1713), Astro-Theology (1714) and Christo-Theology (1730) also contain original scientific observations, among them his recognition of natural variation within species, one of the earliest theoretical descriptions of a marine chronometer, for which he is the first person known to have used the word, and several newly identified nebulae seen with a 16-foot telescope on the tower of St Laurence's Church. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1703 and was Boyle lecturer in 1711 and 1712.