Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Delamaine, Richard (fl.1631)
DELAMAINE, RICHARD, the elder (fl. 1631), mathematician, speaks of himself in his earliest published work, 'Grammelogia,' as a 'teacher and student of the mathematics,' and dedicates the book to King Charles. It was attacked in Oughtred's 'Circles of Proportion' (1631). The date of this publication is 1631, and we may infer that it procured him royal favour and the appointment of tutor to the king in mathematics and quartermaster-general. It is in these terms that his widow describes him in 1645, when she petitioned the House of Lords for relief (Lords' Journals). He left ten children at his decease, one of whom bore his name, but the exact date of his death has not been ascertained.
He wrote: 1. 'Grammelogia or the Mathematicall Ring, extracted from the Logarythmes and projected Circular,' 8vo, 1631. (He explains that his title, intended to express 'the speech of lines,' has been taken in imitation of Lord Napier's 'Rabdologia,' to which he is indebted for the system set forth.) 2. 'The Making, Description, and Use of a small portable Instrument called a Horizontall Quadrant,' 1631, 12mo. A 'ring-sundial of silver,' made upon the plan here described, was sent by Charles I just before his death to his son, the Duke of York (Wood, Athenae, iv. 34).
[Robinson's Reg. of Merchant Taylors' School, i. 152; Hist. Rec. Comm. Rep.]