Edward D'Avenant

He was the son of Edward Davenant and nephew of John Davenant.{{cite ODNB|id=10236|title=Fuller, Thomas|first=W. B.|last=Patterson}} Brief Lives describes the elder Edward Davenant as a learned London merchant, involved in the pilchard trade.{{cite book|author=John Aubrey|author-link=John Aubrey|title=Brief Lives|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J57Irdoky70C&pg=PA87|year=1982|publisher=Boydell & Brewer|isbn=978-0-85115-206-6|page=87}} Edward Davenant the younger was baptised at All Hallows, Bread Street on 25 April 1596 and educated at Merchant Taylors's School.{{cite book|author=Arthur Tozer Russell|author-link=Arthur Tozer Russell|title=Memorials of the life and works of Thomas Fuller|url=https://archive.org/details/memorialslifean00russgoog|year=1844|publisher=William Pickering|page=[https://archive.org/details/memorialslifean00russgoog/page/n41 21]}}{{acad|DVNT610E|Davenant, Edward}}

Davenant then went to Queens' College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1613, and M.A. in 1617. He was incorporated at Oxford on 13 July 1619.[https://www.british-history.ac.uk/alumni-oxon/1500-1714/pp366-405 Alumni Oxonienses 1500-1714, Dabbe-Dirkin] He accompanied his uncle John to the Synod of Dort in 1618, and kept a diary. He was ordained in 1621. From 1615 to 1625 he was a Fellow of Queens', graduating B.D. in 1624. In 1629 he graduated D.D. In the aftermath of the Synod, John Davenant gave Cambridge lectures, significant for hypothetical universalism. They were published only in 1650, the delay being for political reasons; this came about because Edward Davenant sent them to James Ussher, who had Thomas Bedford, another Queens' graduate, edit them (in Latin).{{cite book|author1=Aza Goudriaan|author2=Fred van Lieburg|title=Revisiting the Synod of Dordt (1618–1619)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D5BII67UNg0C&pg=PA175|date=6 December 2010|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-18863-1|page=175 note 54}}

Davenant held incumbencies at Poulshot, North Moreton and Gillingham, Dorset. He was Treasurer of Salisbury Cathedral from 1634. At Gillingham, he pursued mathematical researches, and took pupils, who included John Aubrey.{{cite book|author=Mordechai Feingold|title=The Mathematicians' Apprenticeship: Science, Universities and Society in England, 1560–1640|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7q48AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA80|year=1984|publisher=CUP Archive|isbn=978-0-521-25133-4|page=80}} Aubrey recorded that Davenant was unwilling to publish on mathematics, preferring to keep his interest private. His algebra problems for his daughter Anne have survived in Aubrey's copy.{{cite book|author=Jacqueline Stedall|author-link=Jackie Stedall|title=The History of Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=XzLB3JAt5oAC&pg=PA60 60]|date=23 February 2012|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-959968-4|title-link=The History of Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction}} Aubrey later took these problems to John Pell, for solution and commentary. What Davenant preferred was to circulate portions of his work in manuscript.{{cite book |author=William Poole |title=John Aubrey and the Advancement of Learning |year=2010 |publisher=Bodleian Library |isbn=978-1-85124-319-8|pages=44–5}}

According to John Walker in Sufferings of the Clergy, Davenant suffered sequestration at Gillingham during the First English Civil War, when his family numbered seven sons and five daughters, being replaced by Thomas Andrews.{{cite book|author=John Walker|author-link=John Walker (clerical historian)|title=An Attempt Towards Recovering an Account of the Numbers and Sufferings of the Clergy of the Church of England|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=781DAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA63|year=1714|publisher=W. S.|pages=63–}} Writing to Ussher in 1646, during these troubles, Davenant introduced mathematical topics.{{cite book|author=Richard Parr|author-link=Richard Parr (biographer)|title=The Life of James Usher Lord Arch-Bishop of Armagh, Primate and Metropolitan of all Ireland: with a Collection of three hundred Lettres|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JdRQAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA544|year=1686|page=544}}

Davenant died on 17 March 1679.{{cite web |url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=117055 |title=Dabbe-Dirkin |editor=Joseph Foster |publisher=Institute of Historical Research |year=1891 |work=Alumni Oxonienses 1500–1714 |access-date=3 December 2013}} A memorial slate is in his parish church at Gillingham.{{cite web |url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=128134 |title=Gillingham |publisher=Institute of Historical Research |year=1972|work=An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Dorset, Volume 4: North |access-date=3 December 2013}}

Davenant proposed mathematical problems as challenges. One, on approximation to rational numbers by rationals with bounded denominator, was taken up by John Wallis.{{Cite journal |last=Fowler |first=D. H. |date=1991 |title=An Approximation Technique, and its Use by Wallis and Taylor |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41133888 |journal=Archive for History of Exact Sciences |volume=41 |issue=3 |pages=189–233 |issn=0003-9519}} It led to the development of the theory of continued fractions.{{cite book|author=Scott B. Guthery|title=A Motif of Mathematics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=swb2c9enRJcC&pg=PA30|year=2011|publisher=Docent Press|isbn=978-1-4538-1057-6|page=30}} John Collins in 1676 named the special case, of rational approximations to π, after Davenant; and Wallis praised him. Jackie Stedall suggests, however, that Wallis was more concerned with misdirection, resisting the attribution of earlier work in the field to John Pell.{{cite book |author=Jacqueline A. Stedall|author-link=Jackie Stedall|title=A Discourse Concerning Algebra: English Algebra to 1685|url=https://archive.org/details/discourseconcern1685sted|url-access=limited|year=2002|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-852495-1|page=[https://archive.org/details/discourseconcern1685sted/page/n157 145]}} Another usage of "Dr. Davenant's problem" was to an unrelated question in elimination theory.{{cite book |author=Jacqueline A. Stedall|author-link=Jackie Stedall|title=A Discourse Concerning Algebra: English Algebra to 1685|url=https://archive.org/details/discourseconcern1685sted|url-access=limited|year=2002|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-852495-1|page=[https://archive.org/details/discourseconcern1685sted/page/n259 247] note 66}} This latter problem was addressed by Isaac Newton using power series, and is documented in correspondence.{{cite book|author=Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibniz|title=Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KjvkUMVLDdYC&pg=PA607|year=1963|publisher=Akademie Verlag|isbn=978-3-05-000075-6|page=607}}

Davenant's wife's name is given as Catherine.{{cite book|author=Stephen Hyde Cassan|author-link=Stephen Hyde Cassan|title=Lives and Memoirs of the Bishops of Sherborne and Salisbury: From the Year 705 to 1824|url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924029448903|year=1824|publisher=Printed and sold by Brodie and Dowding|page=[https://archive.org/details/cu31924029448903/page/n152 121]}} Their daughter Katherine married Thomas Lamplugh in 1663.{{cite ODNB|id=15956|title=Lamplugh, Thomas|first=Stuart|last=Handley}} He had two sons, Ralph and John, and another daughter, Anne;{{cite book|author=John Davenant|author-link=John Davenant|editor=Josiah Allport|title=An Exposition of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iMoUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR51|year=1831|publisher=Hamilton, Adams and Company|page=li}} she married Anthony Ettrick, Member of Parliament for Christchurch.[http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1660-1690/member/ettrick-anthony-1622-1703 historyofparliamentonline.org, Ettrick, Anthony (1622–1703), of the Middle Temple and Holt Lodge, Dorset.]

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Category:1596 births

Category:17th-century English mathematicians

Category:People from the City of London

Category:Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge

Category:Archdeacons of Berkshire

Category:1679 deaths

Category:16th-century Anglican theologians

Category:17th-century Anglican theologians