William George Horner is best known for what is now called Horner's method. Horner's method is a technique used for finding the root of a polynomial equation. His method was first published by in the Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society in 1819 although it was independently arrived at by the Italian mathematician Paolo Ruffini in 1804. As a result of this Horner's method is also known as the Ruffini Horner method. In reality this technique was first published some 500 years by Chinese mathematicians and was possibly known even earlier.

William George Horner was born in Bristol in south west England in 1786. After an initial education at Kingswood school, Bristol, Horner became an assistant teacher there in 1800. By 1804 Horner was headmaster of the school. At this point he was aged 18. In 1809 Horner founded his own school in Bath. In 1819 Horner submitted his method for solving algebraic equations to the Royal Society (London). Horner continued as headmaster of his own school until his death in 1837, aged 51.