Richard Norwood

Richard Norwood, born about 1590 and dead in 1675, was an English mathematician, diver and surveyor who has been called Bermuda's outstanding genius of the seventeenth century. The Somers Isles Company sent him out in 1616 to survey the islands of Bermuda, then newly settled; after a quick initial survey that roughly estimated the total land area he completed a more thorough final survey, and his map was published in London in 1622. He was later accused of collusion with the governor over an overplus of eight shares of the best land left after the shares were assigned to the settlers, a discrepancy between the initial estimate and the final survey. In 1623 he patented lands in Virginia, though it does not appear that he ever went there.