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Robert Recorde (c. 1510 - 1558) was a Welsh physician and mathematician. He introduced the "equals" sign (=) in 1557. A member of a respectable family of Tenby, Wales, he entered the University of Oxford in about 1525, and was elected a fellow of All Souls College in 1531. Having adopted medicine as a profession, he went to the University of Cambridge to take the degree of M.D. in 1545. He afterwards returned to Oxford, where he publicly taught mathematics, as he had done prior to going to Cambridge. It appears that he afterwards went to London, and acted as physician to King Edward VI and to Queen Mary, to whom some of his books are dedicated. He was also controller of the Royal Mint. After being sued for defamation by a political enemy, he was arrested for debt and died in the King's Bench Prison, Southwark, in 1558. Recorde published several works upon mathematical subjects, chiefly in the form of dialogue between master and scholar, such as the following:
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