GILBERT, or GILBERD, William, a physician, born at Colchester in the year 1540, was the eldest son of the recorder of that borough. Having spent some time in both universities, he went abroad; and on his return settled in London, where he practised with considerable reputation. He became a member of the College of Physicians, and physician in ordinary to Queen Elizabeth, who, we are told, gave him a pension to encourage him in his studies. From his epitaph it appears that he was also physician to King James I. He died in the year 1603, aged sixty-three, and was buried in Trinity Church, Colchester, where a handsome monument was erected to his memory. His books, globes, instruments, and fossils, he bequeathed to the College of Physicians, and his picture to the school gallery at Oxford. He wrote, 1. De Magnete, magnetisque Corporibus, et de magno magnete Tellure, Physiologia nova, London, 1600, folio; 2. De Mundo nostro sublunari Philosophia nova, Amsterdam, 1651, 4to. He was also the inventor of two mathematical instruments for finding the latitude at sea without the help of sun, moon, or stars. A description of these instruments was afterwards published by Thomas Blondeville, in his Theoriques of the Planets.