Humfray Cole
{{Short description|English maker of scientific instruments and engraver}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2019}}
Humfray ColeHumfrae as he wrote; also Humfrey, Humphry, Humprey, or Humphrey. (died 1591){{cite web |url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/article_index/h/humfrey_cole.aspx |title=British Museum - Humfrey Cole |website=www.britishmuseum.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080806102330/http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/article_index/h/humfrey_cole.aspx |archive-date=2008-08-06}} was an English maker of scientific instruments and engraver.
Life
Cole was, according to his own description, a native of the north of England. From his employment at the mint and the general character of his work he appears to have been a mechanician.{{cite DNB|wstitle=Cole, Humfray|volume=11}} Edward Dyer acted as his patron, and he was commended as artisan by Gabriel Harvey.Christopher Hill, Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution (1980), p. 133 and p. 15.
For the second edition of the Bishops' Bible, published in 1572, he engraved a map of Palestine, as Canaan, thought to be based on a 1557 map by Tilemann Stella or Stoltz.[https://books.google.com/books?id=gMnUylp85_QC&dq=%27%27Humfray+Cole%22+%22map+of+Palestine%22&pg=PA60 Catherine Delano-Smith, Elizabeth Morley Ingram, Maps in Bibles, 1500-1600: an Illustrated Catalogue] On it he describes himself as "Humfray Cole, goldsmith, an Englishman born in ye north and pertayning to ye Mint in the Tower, 1572."
Poorly paid at the mint, Cole took outside commissions; he undertook to supply any of the instruments shown in the 1571 Pantometria of Leonard Digges and Thomas Digges.http://www.sartonchair.ugent.be/index.php?id=59&type=file, p. 8 of PDF; list of Cole's instruments on later pages. He supplied instruments to Martin Frobisher.{{cite web |url=http://www-ah.st-andrews.ac.uk/mgstud/reflect/humphrey.html |title=Humphrey Cole and the Armilliary Sphere (1582) |website=www-ah.st-andrews.ac.uk |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020820212048/http://www-ah.st-andrews.ac.uk/mgstud/reflect/humphrey.html |archive-date=2002-08-20}} He was employed in engraving mathematical and astronomical instruments in brass, of which there are specimens in the British Museum. One of these is an astrolabe, at one time in the possession of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. He also made an armillary sphere. James Gregory purchased examples of Cole's work in London in 1673, for the University of St Andrews.
William Bourne also mentions Cole as an innovator in the design of a ship's log.{{cite DNB|wstitle=Bourne, William|volume=6}}
Notes
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External links
- [https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_results.aspx Objects by Cole at the British Museum]
- [http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/search/listResults.cfm?Maker=Humphrey%20Cole&SortBy=maker Objects by Cole at the National Maritime Museum]
- [http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/maker.php?MakerID=66 Page at the Museum of the History of Science]
;Attribution
{{DNB|wstitle=Cole, Humfray|volume=11}}
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