Henry Farquharson

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Henry Farquharson (c. 1675 – 19 December 1739) was a Scottish teacher who helped start modern mathematics in Russia. He was born about 1675 in Milton, Whitehouse, Aberdeenshire, the son of John Farquharson, and studied at Marischal College in Aberdeen, where he worked as a math tutor by 1695. In 1698, Tsar Peter the Great invited him to Russia to set up a mathematics and navigation school in Moscow. Farquharson arrived with colleagues and, after waiting for patronage, the Mathematics and Navigation School opened in 1701 and later moved to the Sukharev Tower. The school taught arithmetic, trigonometry, navigation, astronomy and surveying and grew quickly, with about 1,200 specialists graduating by 1715. In 1715 the St. Petersburg Naval Academy was founded, and Farquharson was appointed senior professor of mathematics, effectively running the academy. He expanded the curriculum to include drawing, fencing, artillery and fortification, and many graduates went on to serve in foreign navies. He was connected with European scientists, corresponding with Leibniz and the Royal Society, and translated works into Russian, including Euclid’s Elements and Arithmetica Logarithmica. He was also a skilled cartographer, helped create a hydrographic atlas of the Caspian Sea, and rose to brigadier in the Russian table of ranks. Farquharson died in St. Petersburg on 19 December 1739 and was buried in St. Sampson's cemetery.