Born in 1834 in Hull,England, John Venn studied at Gonville and Caius College from 1853 to 1857.  Before his Mathematical life began he was ordained a priest.  However, by 1862 he became a lecturer in Moral Science at Cambridge University. While at Cambridge, Venn taught and studied logic and probability theory.  Perhaps, he is best remembered for his contribution of "Venn Diagrams" which represent  the unions and/or intersections of sets.  In 1866, Venn wrote Logic of Chance.  He also published Symbolic Logic in 1881 and The Principles of Empirical Logic in 1889.  Venn became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1883.  Shortly after, Venn became a historian.  He completed The Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College in 1897.  Before John Venn died in 1923, he wrote a history of Cambridge University.  The first volume was not published until 1922. 

Author: Filiberto Barajas

References:
1.  Biography in Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York 1970-1990).

2.  W C Salmon, John Venn's Logic of Chance, Proceedings of the 1978 Pisa Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science II (Dordrecht-Boston, Mass., 1981), 125-138.

URL: http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/References/Venn.html