Reuben Burrow (30 December 1747 – 7 June 1792) was an English mathematician, surveyor and orientalist. Initially a teacher, he was appointed assistant to Sir Nevil Maskelyne, the fifth Astronomer Royal, at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, and was involved in the Schiehallion experiment. He later conducted research in India, teaching himself Sanskrit and becoming one of the first members of the Asiatic Society. He was the first to measure the length of a degree of an arc of longitude along the Tropic of Cancer. His other major achievements included a study of Indian mathematics, although he earned a reputation for being rude and unpolished amid the leading figures in science who came mostly from the upper-class. One commentator called him "an able mathematician but a most vulgar and scurrilous dog."
Biography Burrow was born at Hoberley, near Shadwell, Leeds. His father, a small tenant farmer, gave him some schooling, occasionally interrupted by labour on the farm. He showed an ability and keenness for mathematics early on, and received some instruction from a schoolmaster named Crooks at Leeds. At the age of 18 he walked for four days, all the way from Leeds to London, to seek a job and obtained a clerkship in the office of a London merchant. A year later he became usher in a school of Benjamin Webb, the ‘celebrated writing-master.’ He next set up as schoolmaster on his own account at Portsmouth. Here he taught mathematics for navigation to aspiring midshipmen. His reputation in mathematics reached Nevil Maskelyne and he received an offer for a position of "labourer" at the Greenwich Observatory. Burrow, an argumentative man, was however unable to work with the genteel and refined astronomer-royal and he soon left. In 1772 he married Anne Purvis, daughter of a poulterer in Leadenhall Street, and started a school at Greenwich.
In 1774, Burrow and William Menzies, a local land surveyor, aided Maskelyne in his observations in the Schiehallion experiment, to examine the deflection by gravity of the plumbline towards the mountain. He complained later that his services were insufficiently recognised. Burrow was liable to use words of abuse at anyone and he did not think Maskelyne deserved his position. Soon afterwards, however, he was appointed ‘mathematical teacher in the drawing-room at the Tower,’ where there was then a training school for artillery officers, afterwards merged into the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. His salary was £100 a year. Here he became editor of the Ladies and Gentlemen's Diary, or Royal Almanack. It was started by Thomas Carnan, in opposition to the Ladies' Diary, published by the Stationers' Company and edited by Charles Hutton and like it included mathematical puzzles. The company claimed a monopoly of almanacs, but their claim was disallowed by the court of common pleas, on their bringing an action against Carnan, who published the first number of his diary in December 1775. It continued till 1786, the word 'Gentlemen' being dropped after 1780. Part of it was devoted to mathematical problems by Burrow and various contributors. Burrow quarrelled with his rival, Charles Hutton. Falling out with Maskelyne and others, he eked out his living by taking private pupils, and did a little work for publishers; a bit of work at London brought him in contact with Colonel Henry Watson, for many years chief engineer in Bengal under Lord Clive. Watson recommended him to Lord Townsend as a good candidate "to teach mathematics to the Cadets of the drawing room" of the tower. In 1777 he worked on a survey of the coast "from Naze in Essex to Hollseby bay in Sussex" (actually Suffolk) to assess vulnerabilities to attack by the French. He was joined by a party of pupils and the fleet was commanded by Admiral Howe. He later complained to master-general of the ordnance, the duke of Richmond, that he was not paid "a farthing". Henry Watson in the meantime was recalled to Bengal and offered to take Burrow along. Burrow resigned on 30 April 1782 "in order to go to the East Indies."
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