John Beale

John Beale (c.1608 – 1683) was an English clergyman, scientific writer, and early Fellow of the Royal Society. He contributed to John Evelyn's Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-Trees and the Propagation of Timber, and was an influential author on orchards and cider. He was also a member of the Hartlib Circle.

Life He was born in Yarkhill, Herefordshire, the son of Thomas Beale, a lawyer and farmer, and Joanna Pye; he was a nephew of Robert Pye and Walter Pye. He was educated at the King's School, Worcester by Henry Bright, who is thought to have nurtured his early study of Erasmus,

Beale proposed an art of memory to Samuel Hartlib, in 1656. Hartlib, writing to Robert Boyle in 1658, said of Beale: "There is not the like man in the whole island". He became rector of Yeovil, Somerset, in 1660.

In January, 1663 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Works His works are:

Aphorisms concerning Cider, printed in John Evelvn's Sylva 1664, and entitled in the later editions of that work, General Advertisements concerning Cider. Herefordshire Orchards, a Pattern for all England, written in an Epistolary Address to Samuel Hartlib, Esq. By I. B., Lond. 1656; reprinted in Richard Bradley's New Improvements of Planting and Gardening, 1724 and 1739. Papers in the Philosophical Transactions. Letters to Robert Boyle, printed in the 5th volume of Boyle's works.