Anders Spole

Anders Spole (13 June 1630 – 1 August 1699) was a Swedish mathematician and astronomer. He was born at a farm in Målen, the son of blacksmith Per Andersson and his wife Gunilla Persdotter.[1] At the age of twelve he started studying at Jönköpings skola and was sent to the University of Greifswald in 1652.[1] After three years of studies he continued at other universities in Prussia and Saxony, until his return to Barnarp in 1655, where he started preaching in the local church.[1] He continued to study mathematics at Uppsala University, while at the same time being a tutor baron Sjöblad's sons.[1] In 1663, he became a master craftsman of fireworks and the arts of navigation.[1] The following year he accompanied the young Sjöblads on their peregrination around Europe.[2]

A 19th-century woodcut of Anders Spole

When he returned in 1667, he was named professor in mathematics at the newly founded Lund University; in 1672 he became the principal of that university.[1] He retained this position until 1676 when the university was dissolved because of the Scanian War.[3] During this war he fought on the Swedish side, and he held ground at the fortress in Jönköping. He fought at the Battle of Landskrona in 1677.[2]

In 1679, he took up a professorship in astronomy at Uppsala University, and built an astronomical observatory in his home in central Uppsala.[3] The building, along with all his instruments, was destroyed in the large city fire in Uppsala in 1702.[2][3] In 1695, by the order of King Karl XI, he travelled to Torneå and Kengis together with Johannes Bilberg to study the midnight sun.[4]

Spole married Martha Lindelius, a distant relative of Carl von Linné, in 1669.[2] Spole's sons were knighted in 1715 for their conduct during the war.[4]