Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Norman, Robert
NORMAN, ROBERT (fl. 1590), mathematical instrument maker, was the author of ‘The Newe Attractive, containing a short discourse of the Magnes or Lodestone, and amongest other his vertues, of a newe discovered secret and subtill propertie concernyng the declinyng of the Needle touched therewith under the plaine of the Horizon,’ black letter, small 4to, 1581. This book was dedicated to William Borough [q. v.], then comptroller of the navy, to whose ‘encouragement, good counsel, accustomed courtesy, and friendly affection towards me, an unlearned mechanician,’ Norman attributes the working out of the subject. Borough added an appendix: ‘A Discovery of the Variation of the Compass,’ in the preface to which Norman is referred to as ‘the expert artificer;’ and a note at the end advertises that the instruments described ‘are made by Robert Norman, and may be had at his house in Radcliffe.’ The book was often reprinted, but the later editions want both the dedication and Borough's appendix. Norman also wrote ‘Safegarde of Saylers,’ 8vo, 1590 (1600 and later); a rutter, or sailing directions, translated from the Dutch.
[His own works, as cited; Whiston's Longitude and Latitude, found by the Inclinatory or Dipping Needle.]