Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chamberlain, Robert (fl.1678)
CHAMBERLAIN, ROBERT (fl. 1678), arithmetician, living in London, in Northumberland Alley, Fenchurch Street, on 22 Oct. 1678, was then an 'accomptant and practitioner of the mathematicks.' He may have been the Robert Chamberlain who entered the Merchant Taylors' School on 13 June 1632 (Robinson, Reg. of Mer. Taylors' School, i. 170). Having been in business in Virginia and at home, ne published in 1679 'The Accomptant's Guide, or Merchant's Book-keeper . . . with Tables for the reducing of Flemish Ells into English, and English into Flemish, . . . Also . . . Tables of Exchange . . . with a Journal or Ledger,' &c. In 1679 he also published ' A Plaine and Easie Explanation of the most Useful and Necessary Art of Arithmetick in Whole Numbers and Fractions . . . whereunto are added Rules and Tables of Interest, Rebate, Purchases, Gaging of Cask, and Extraction of the Square and Cube Roots. Composed by Robert Chamberlain, Accomptant and Practitioner in the Mathematicks;' also called 'Chamberlain's Arithmetick.' His ' effigies ' was engraved by Binneman to appear as frontispiece to his books, and an anonymous admirer wrote six lines of verse for it, given by Granger (Biog. Hist. iv. 102). Bromley, in his ' Catalogue of Portraits ' (p. 188), appears to record that Chamberlain died in 1696.
[Chamberlain's Accomptant's Guide, and his Arithmetick, their Dedications, addresses to the Header, Frontispieces, and Title-pages; Bromley's Cat. of Portraits, p. 188.]