Epact Scientific Instruments of Medieval and Renaissance Europe

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Augustine Ryther

Augustine Ryther (fl. 1576-1594) worked in London in the last quarter of the 16th century and, like other English mathematical instrument makers of the period, he was also known as an engraver. Indeed, most of Ryther's surviving production is in the form of engraved maps, the earliest being two maps engraved in 1576 for Christopher Saxton's county atlas of England and Wales. He also collaborated with the mathematical author Thomas Hood, engraving Hood's celestial planispheres (1590) and his sea chart of the north east Atlantic (1592). Ryther belonged to the Grocers' Company, one of London's guilds, and he stands at the head of a long master-apprentice succession of instrument makers which stretches into the 19th century. The immediate link in this chain came through his apprentice Charles Whitwell.

For instruments by Augustine Ryther, see:

Theodolite, Signed by Augustine Ryther, English, Dated 1590 (Firenze, IMSS)

References: Only a few instruments by Ryther survive, including an altazimuth theodolite (Epact 70165) and an equinoctial dial.J. Brown, Mathematical Instrument-Makers in the Grocers' Company 1688-1800, with Notes on some Earlier Makers (London, 1979), p. 24, and pp. 58-60 A. M. Hind, Engraving in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (3 vols., Cambridge, 1952-64), vol. 1, pp. 138-49.