Olinthus Gilbert Gregory (29 January 17742 February 1841) was an English mathematician, author, and editor. Biography He was born on 29 January 1774 at Yaxley in Huntingdonshire, the son of Robert, a shoemaker, and Ann, who also had three younger daughters: Harriet Euphrasia, Sophia (who died in 1783) and Marianna. Having been educated by Richard Weston, a Leicester botanist, Olinthus published a treatise, Lessons, Astronomical and Philosophical in 1793. After moving to Cambridge in 1796, Gregory first acted as sub-editor on the Cambridge Intelligencer, and then opened a booksellers shop. In 1802 he obtained an appointment as mathematical master at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich through the influence of Charles Hutton, to whose notice he had been brought by a manuscript on the Use of the Sliding Rule; and when Hutton resigned in 1807 Gregory succeeded him in the professorship. Gregory combined his love of mathematics with an interest in music, but not in the melodious sense: music should be subject to rational principles. He proposed “the substitution of proper characters to denote the different kinds of musical time, instead of those vague indefinite ones, which are now in use.” No more 3/2 time, or Adagio and Allegro; rather, some absolute rate, based on the swing of a precisely-calibrated pendulum. Each composition should be played at its pre-defined speed, no matter who was conducting. In discussing Gregory's ideas, Werrett draws attention to the environment at Woolwich in which he developed them, and the use of the metronome to maintain a consistent rhythm in military music. Gregory favoured the establishment of a secular university in London. By the end of 1825 he was on a ten-man committee interviewing and selecting the teaching staff. His name was inscribed on the foundation stone of the new University, laid in Gower Street on 30 April 1827. Failing health obliged him to retire in 1838, and he died at his home at Queen's Terrace, Woolwich on 2 February 1841. Gregory's library was sold on 17 & 18 March 1842 by Southgate & Son of 22 Fleet Street. The esteem in which Dr Gregory was held can be judged from the following letter in 1841: To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle. Sir - I see by your paper of the 11th inst., that Doctor Olinthus Gregory, late Professor Mathematics, &c. &c., Royal Miltary Academy, Woolwich, has left his widow and family in any thing but