Apart from his baptism at
Swillington in
Yorkshire in May 1546, nothing is known about Chamber's family or his life before Oxford. In October 1568 he graduated
BA at
Merton College, Oxford, and in December of the next year was elected a probationary fellow of his college. He proceeded to
MA in October 1573, having already taken
holy orders. In 1574, he was appointed a lecturer on grammar and gave an oration on
Ptolemy's
Almagest. In 1576, he was appointed a lecturer on Greek and was also chosen as junior
Linacre lecturer in medicine, a Merton College appointment which was repeated in 1579. In 1582 his life changed direction dramatically when he was elected to a fellowship at
Eton and moved to Windsor, giving up his fellowship at Oxford. In 1583,
Burghley appointed Chamber, with
Henry Savile and
Thomas Digges, to sit on a commission to consider whether England should adopt the
Gregorian calendar, as proposed by
John Dee, and in 1584 he applied through Merton for a licence to practise medicine. In 1593 Chamber received the preferment of
prebendary of
Netherbury in Terra at
Salisbury Cathedral, and in June 1601 became a canon of
St George's Chapel, Windsor. He died at Eton early in August 1604, and was entombed in St George's Chapel. A memorial there (since lost) recorded that Chamber left £1,000 to Merton to endow two scholarships for boys from Eton and £50 to assist the poor of Windsor. ==Works==