THOMAS GALE (?1636-1702), English classical scholar and antiquarian, was born at Scruton, Yorkshire. He was educated at Westminster school and Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow. In 1666 he was appointed regius professor of Greek at Cambridge, in 1672 high master of St Paul's school, in 1676 prebendary of St Paul's, in 1677 a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1697 dean of York. He died at York on the 7th (or 8th) of April 1702. He published a collection, Opuscula mythologica, ethica, et physica, and editions of several Greek and Latin authors, but his fame rests chiefly on his collection of old works bearing on Early English history, entitled Historiae Anglicanae scriptures and Historiae Britannicae, Saxonicae, Anglo-Danicae scriptores X V. He was the author of the inscription on the London Monument in which the Roman Catholics were accused of having originated the great fire.
See J. E. B. Mayor, Cambridge in the Time of Queen Anne, 448-450.