Edward Wright (baptised 8 October 1561; died November 1615) was an English mathematician and cartographer noted for his book Certaine Errors in Navigation (1599; 2nd ed., 1610), which for the first time explained the mathematical basis of the Mercator projection by building on the works of Pedro Nunes, and set out a reference table giving the linear scale multiplication factor as a function of latitude, calculated for each minute of arc up to a latitude of 75°.

In 1589 the college granted him leave after Elizabeth I requested that he carry out navigational studies with a raiding expedition organised by the Earl of Cumberland to the Azores to capture Spanish galleons.

A skilled designer of mathematical instruments, Wright made models of an astrolabe and a pantograph, and a type of armillary sphere for Prince Henry.

Apart from a number of other books and pamphlets, Wright translated John Napier's pioneering 1614 work which introduced the idea of logarithms from Latin into English.

[4][5] Sizars were students of limited means who were charged lower fees and obtained free food and/or lodging and other assistance during their period of study, often in exchange for performing work at their colleges.

[7] In 1589, two years after being appointed to his fellowship, Wright was requested by Elizabeth I to carry out navigational studies with a raiding expedition organised by the Earl of Cumberland to the Azores to capture Spanish galleons.

Walter Bigges and Lt. Crofts' book A Summarie and True Discourse of Sir Frances Drakes West Indian Voyage (1589),[9] Edward Careless was referred to as the commander of the Hope, but Wright was not mentioned.

[14] Molyneux's terrestrial and celestial globes, the first to be manufactured in England, were published in late 1592 or early 1593, and Wright explained their use in his 1599 work Certaine Errors in Navigation.

But they may be pacified, if not by reason of the good that ensueth hereupon, yet towards me at the least because the errors I poynt at in the chart, have beene heretofore poynted out by others, especially by Petrus Nonius, out of whom most part of the first Chapter of the Treatise following is almost worde for worde translated;This appeal to the authority of Pedro Nunes and the fact that the first chapter treats the Faults in the common Sea Chart, With Rumbes expressed by right lines and degrees of latitude, everywhere equal, show Nunes' influence in Wright's work.

In addition, the effect of following a rhumb line course on the surface of a globe was first discussed by Pedro Nunes in 1537 in his Treatise in Defense of the Marine Chart.

In this work, Nunes proposes the construction of a nautical atlas composed of several large-scale sheets in the cylindrical equidistant projection as a way to minimize distortion of directions.

In Certaine errors of navigation, Wright improved and diversified Nunes' charting method,[18] thus explaining the construction and use of the Mercator projection.

Geom..In order to achieve this, Wright introduces the method for dividing the meridian, an explanation of how he had constructed a table for the division, and the uses of this information for navigation.

[22] In the second edition Wright also incorporated various improvements, including proposals for determining the magnitude of the Earth and reckoning common linear measurements as a proportion of a degree on the Earth's surface "that they might not depend on the uncertain length of a barley-corn"; a correction of errors arising from the eccentricity of the eye when making observations using the cross-staff; amendments in tables of declinations and the positions of the sun and the stars, which were based on observations he had made together with Christopher Heydon using a 6-foot (1.8 m) quadrant; and a large table of the variation of the compass as observed in different parts of the world, to show that it is not caused by any magnetic pole.

However, an experienced navigator, believed to be Abraham Kendall, borrowed a draft of Wright's manuscript and, unknown to him, made a copy of it which he took on Sir Francis Drake's 1595 expedition to the West Indies.

[31] Shakespeare alluded to the map in Twelfth Night (1600–1601),[32] when Maria says of Malvolio: "He does smile his face into more lynes, than is in the new Mappe, with the augmentation of the Indies.

[33] Wright translated into English De Havenvinding (1599) by the Flemish mathematician and engineer Simon Stevin, which appeared in the same year as The Haven-Finding Art, or the Way to Find any Haven or Place at Sea, by the Latitude and Variation.

He prepared "a plat of part of the waye whereby a newe River may be brought from Uxbridge to St. James, Whitehall, Westminster [,] the Strand, St Giles, Holbourne and London",[40] However, according to a 1615 paper in Latin in the annals of Gonville and Caius College, he was prevented from bringing this plan to fruition "by the tricks of others".

As the technology of the time did not extend to large pumps or pipes, the water flow had to depend on gravity through canals or aqueducts over an average fall of 5.5 inches a mile (87.8 millimetres per kilometre).

The stoppage has been attributed to factors such as Myddelton facing difficulties in raising funds, and landowners along the route opposing the acquisition of their lands on the ground that the river would turn their meadows into "bogs and quagmires".

[42] For some time Wright had urged that a navigation lectureship be instituted for merchant seamen, and he persuaded Admiral Sir William Monson, who had been on Cumberland's Azores expedition of 1589, to encourage a stipend to be paid for this.

[44] Wright was also mathematics tutor to the son of James I, the heir apparent Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, from 1608 or 1609[16][39] until the latter's death at the age of 18 on 6 November 1612.

[4] To the Prince, who was greatly interested in the science of navigation,[45] Wright dedicated the second edition of Certaine Errors (1610) and the world map published therein.

According to the 1615 Caius annals, "[h]e was excellent both in contrivance and execution, nor was he inferior to the most ingenious mechanic in the making of instruments, either of brass or any other matter".

[23] The 1610 edition of Certaine Errors contained descriptions of the "sea-ring", which consisted of a universal ring dial mounted over a magnetic compass that enabled mariners to determine readily the magnetic variation of the compass, the sun's altitude and the time of day in any place if the latitude was known;[47] the "sea-quadrant", for the taking of altitudes by a forward or backward observation; and a device for finding latitude when one was not on the meridian using the height of the pole star.

The preface to Wright's edition consists of a translation of the preface to the Descriptio, together with the addition of the following sentences written by Napier himself: But now some of our countreymen in this Island well affected to these studies, and the more publique good, procured a most learned Mathematician to translate the same into our vulgar English tongue, who after he had finished it, sent the Coppy of it to me, to bee seene and considered on by myselfe.

[49]While working on the translation, Wright died in late November 1615 and was buried on 2 December 1615 at St. Dionis Backchurch (now demolished) in the City of London.

[4] It appeared posthumously as A Description of the Admirable Table of Logarithmes in 1616, and in it Wright was lauded in verse as "[t]hat famous, learned, Errors true Corrector, / England's great Pilot, Mariners Director".

[53] Following Wright's proposals, Richard Norwood measured a degree on a great circle of the earth at 367,196 feet (111,921 m), publishing the information in 1637.