Sir Edward Thomas ffrench Bromhead, 2nd Baronet FRS

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

(26 March 1789 – 14 March 1855) was a British landowner and

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

, best remembered as patron of the mathematician and physicist George Green and mentor of

George Boole George Boole (; 2 November 1815 – 8 December 1864) was a largely self-taught English mathematician, philosopher, and logician, most of whose short career was spent as the first professor of mathematics at Queen's College, Cork in Ire ...

Life

Born the son of

Gonville Bromhead Major Gonville Bromhead VC (29 August 1845 – 9 February 1891) was a British Army officer and recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for valour in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to members of the British armed forces. H ...

, 1st Baronet Bromhead (grandfather of the British second in command of the same name at

Rorke's Drift The Battle of Rorke's Drift (1879), also known as the Defence of Rorke's Drift, was an engagement in the Anglo-Zulu War. The successful British defence of the mission station of Rorke's Drift, under the command of Lieutenants John Chard of the ...

) and Lady Jane ffrench, Baroness ffrench, in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

. Bromhead was educated at the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

and later at

Caius College, Cambridge Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of th ...

( B.A. 1812, M.A. 1815) before taking up the study of law at the

Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional associations for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wal ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. He was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in 1817. Returning to Lincolnshire, he became High Steward of

Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincoln ...

. He became the 2nd Bromhead baronet, of Thurlby Hall in 1822. While at Cambridge, Bromhead was a founder of the

Analytical Society The Analytical Society was a group of individuals in early-19th-century Britain whose aim was to promote the use of Leibnizian notation for differentiation in calculus as opposed to the Newton notation for differentiation.Carl B. Boyer (1989) ''A ...

, a precursor of the

Cambridge Philosophical Society The Cambridge Philosophical Society (CPS) is a scientific society at the University of Cambridge. It was founded in 1819. The name derives from the medieval use of the word philosophy to denote any research undertaken outside the fields of law ...

, together with

John Herschel Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (; 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor, experimental photographer who invented the blueprint and did botanical wor ...

George Peacock George Peacock FRS (9 April 1791 – 8 November 1858) was an English mathematician and Anglican cleric. He founded what has been called the British algebra of logic. Early life Peacock was born on 9 April 1791 at Thornton Hall, Denton, nea ...

and

Charles Babbage Charles Babbage (; 26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an English polymath. A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer. Babbage is considered ...

, with whom he maintained a close and lifelong friendship. While he was, by all accounts, a gifted mathematician in his own right (although ill-health prevented him from pursuing his studies further), his greatest contribution to the subject is at second hand: having subscribed to the first publication of self-taught mathematician and physicist George Green, he encouraged Green to continue his research and to write further papers (which Bromhead sent on to be published in the

Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society The Cambridge Philosophical Society (CPS) is a scientific society at the University of Cambridge. It was founded in 1819. The name derives from the medieval use of the word philosophy to denote any research undertaken outside the fields of law ...

and those of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

). Bromhead repeated his success by encouraging the young

from

. Bromhead was President of the Lincoln Mechanics Institute in the

Lincoln Greyfriars The Greyfriars, Lincoln was a Franciscan friary in Lincolnshire, England. The surviving building is the remains of the infirmary of the friary, built of dressed stone and brick and dating from c.1230, with mid 19th century additions. History Fr ...

, where George Boole's father was the curator. Boole first came to public notice when he gave a lecture on the work of Sir

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...

on 5 February 1835.Society for the History of Astronomy
/ref> The young Boole's development was fed by books that Bromhead supplied.A. W. F. Edwards, ‘Bromhead, Sir Edward Thomas Ffrench, second baronet (1789–1855)’, rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 20 Aug 2014
/ref> Bromhead lost his sight when he was old and he died unmarried at his home of Thurlby Hall in

Thurlby, North Kesteven Thurlby is a village and civil parish in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, about south-west of the city of Lincoln and about north-east of the town of Newark-on-Trent. It is most notable for Thurlby Hall, home of the Bromh ...

on 14 March 1855.

Arms

Selected publications

X. Remarks on the present state of botanical classification Philosophical Magazine Series 3 Volume 11, Issue 64-65, 1837

XXVIII. Memoranda on the origin of the botanical alliances Philosophical Magazine Series 3 Volume 11, Issue 67, 1837
*

References

Bibliography

* * Mentions Bromhead's role in the career of George Green. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bromhead, Edward 19th-century English mathematicians Mathematical analysts Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Scientists from Dublin (city) Bromhead, Sir Edward, 2nd Baronet 1789 births 1855 deaths Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh