Sir Edward Thomas ffrench Bromhead, 2nd BaronetFRSFRSE (26 March 1789 – 14 March 1855) was a British landowner and mathematician, best remembered as patron of the mathematician and physicist George Green and mentor of George Boole.
While at Cambridge, Bromhead was a founder of the Analytical Society, a precursor of the Cambridge Philosophical Society,[3] together with John Herschel, George Peacock and Charles Babbage, 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 and those of the Royal Society of Edinburgh).
Bromhead repeated his success by encouraging the young George Boole from Lincoln. Bromhead was President of the Lincoln Mechanics Institute in the Lincoln Greyfriars, 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 on 5 February 1835.[4] The young Boole's development was fed by books that Bromhead supplied.[5]
Bromhead lost his sight when he was old and he died unmarried at his home of Thurlby Hall in Thurlby, North Kesteven on 14 March 1855.[5]
Arms
Coat of arms of Edward Bromhead
Crest
Out of a mural crown Gules a unicorn’s head Argent horned Or in the mouth a rose Gules slipped and leaved Proper.
Escutcheon
Azure on a bend Argent between two leopard faces Or a mural crown Gules between two fleurs-de-lis Sable.
^ abA. W. F. Edwards, ‘Bromhead, Sir Edward Thomas Ffrench, second baronet (1789–1855)’, rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 20 Aug 2014
^Burke's genealogical and heraldic history of the peerage, baronetage, and knightage, Privy Council, and order of preference. 1949.
Cannel, D. M. and Lord, N. J. (March 1993). "George Green, mathematician and physicist 1793–1841". The Mathematical Gazette. 77 (478): 26–51. doi:10.2307/3619259. JSTOR3619259. S2CID238490315.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Mentions Bromhead's role in the career of George Green.