City Readers Digital Historic Collections at the New York Society Library

William Whiston (9 December 1667 – 22 August 1752) was an English theologian, historian, and mathematician, a leading figure in the popularisation of the ideas of Isaac Newton. He is now probably best known for helping to instigate the Longitude Act in 1714 (and his attempts to win the rewards that it promised) and his important translations of the Antiquities of the Jews and other works by Josephus (which are still in print). He was a prominent exponent of Arianism and wrote A New Theory of the Earth.

Whiston succeeded his mentor Newton as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. Having lost the position over his theological views, he spent the rest of his life as a lecturer and writer.