Stephen Peter Rigaud

Stephen Peter Rigaud (12 August 1774–16 March 1839) FRAS was an English mathematical historian and astronomer.

Rigaud was born into a French Protestant family. His father, Stephen (also known as James Stephen) Rigaud, was Observer at the Kew Observatory, and his uncle was the portrait painter John Francis Rigaud, who painted a portrait of Rigaud, aged four, and his sister Mary Anne.

He was a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford from 1794 to 1810, held the Savilian Chair of Geometry at the University of Oxford from 1810 to 1827, and was Savilian Professor of Astronomy from 1827 to 1839. He lived at 21 Richmond Green in Richmond, Surrey (now Richmond, London) from 1815 to 1826.

Published works

• Historical essay on the first publication of Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia (1838)

Death and legacy

He died on 16 March 1839 and was buried at St James, Piccadilly, London, where a memorial to him lies in the church.

His papers, purchased at Sotheby's in 1978, are held at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. His eldest son, Stephen Jordan Rigaud (1816–1859), was an English clergyman and schoolmaster who became Bishop of Antigua.