Sharp

Sharp, ABRAHAM, a meritorious mechanist and astronomer, who, born at Little Horton near Bradford in 1653, and apprenticed to a tradesman, became a schoolmaster, and acquired a thorough knowledge of mathematics and the cognate sciences. Having also acted as exciseman and bookkeeper in a London office, he was in 1688 asked by Flamsteed to assist in mounting instruments at Greenwich Royal Observatory. There for some years he did admirable work on the instruments, perfecting hand-graduation and other processes, and making many very valuable observations; and after retiring to Horton, he continued to assist Flamsteed by his extraordinary powers as a calculator. He published tables of logarithms and a treatise, Geometry Improved (1717), and made observations in a small observatory fitted up by himself. He died 18th July 1742. See his Life and Correspondence, edited by Cudworth (1889).