To record, study & raise awareness of the archaeology & history of The City of Lincoln

George Boole's Lincoln 1815 -49

George Boole's Lincoln 1815-49

This edited collection of recent research, produced by The Survey of Lincoln, looks at buildings, places and institutions in and around Lincoln which had associations with the famous mathematician George Boole. George Boole was born in Lincoln's city centre and grew up there, leaving for a teaching post in Doncaster before returning to Lincoln and nearby Waddington.

He was appointed Professor at the University of Cork, Ireland where he propounded his mathematical logic (now referred to as 'Boolean Logic' which underpins the working of internet search engines.

During his time in Lincoln he became well-respected. Slightly over two centuries later the city is again commemorating him.

GEORGE BOOLE’S LINCOLN, 1815-49

This edited collection investigates one notable nineteenth-century Lincoln inhabitant, George Boole, often described today as the ‘grandfather of the digital age’. He was much associated with the city from his birth in 1815 until his move to become the first Professor in Mathematics at Queen’s College, Cork in 1849.

George Boole’s life in Lincoln, working mainly as a schoolteacher, coincided with significant developments in the city, including the coming of the railway. The book looks at some of the key sites in the city with which Boole was associated. It identifies his birthplace in Silver Street, examines the buildings in which he worked as a schoolteacher and explores some of the buildings and structures that contained a range of organisations with which he was particularly connected, including the Mechanics’ Institute, located in Greyfriars. The changing townscape in which Boole was living is investigated and the importance of Lincoln as a centre of scientific experimentation and educational endeavour during Boole’s time in the city is emphasised.

The volume also focuses upon how George Boole has been remembered in the city since his death. This ranges from the cathedral window designed in his honour, archival deposits such as the Rollett Collection, to plaques, the Boole Technology Centre, a residential street and significant public works of art.

Chapters:

ANDREW WALKER Introduction

SUSAN PAYNE Key dates in George Boole’s life with particular reference to Lincoln

MALCOLM SMITH The significance of George Boole’s work

BERYL GEORGE 34 Silver Street: George Boole’s birthplace

ROB WHEELER Robert Hall’s Academy at Waddington

ROB WHEELER George Boole’s school and the move to Pottergate

LESLEY CLARKE George Boole and the Lincoln Mechanics’ Institute

ANDREW WALKER Accommodating a thirst for knowledge in George Boole’s Lincoln

ANDREW J.H. JACKSON The provincial press and local and regional life during the first half of the nineteenth century

RICHARD SKIPWORTH George Boole and the Chartist

GEOFF TANN Lincoln Saving Bank and Lincoln Benefit Building Society

DAVE WATT A modern street map of Lincoln showing places associated with George Boole, with the sites of memorials erected in his honour

ADAM CARTWRIGHT The arrival of the railways

BERYL GEORGE The building of the first Lincoln Corn Exchange

BERYL GEORGE Lincoln’s changing centre, 1815-49

MICHAEL J. JONES Antiquaries and archaeologists in early-Victorian Lincoln

NIGEL HORNER AND ROB GOEMANS The Lincoln Asylum – innovations in treatment

GEOFF TANN Lincoln contemporaries’ appreciation of George Boole

ANDREW WALKER The Boole Window, Lincoln Cathedral

SUSAN PAYNE The centenary of George Boole’s death and the plaque at Pottergate, 1964

DAVE KENYON George Boole: A personal journey to the High Street plaque

ANDREW WALKER Recent memorials to George Boole in Lincoln

SUSAN PAYNE The George Boole (Rollett) Collection

For further details, please email Geoff Tann at solsecretary@gmail.com

ISBN 978-0-9931263-5-2. £8.50

George Boole's Lincoln 1815-49

Cover price £8.50

Available from:

Society for Lincolnshire History & Archaeology, Jews Court Bookshop, Steep Hill, Lincoln
Springbok Computers Ltd (near Ritz Cinema)
Lindum Books, Bailgate, Lincoln
KayBooks Online
Lincs Family History Society, Monks Way, Lincoln

Always available direct from

The Survey of Lincoln (solsecretary@gmail.com)

Extract from the chapter:

Lincoln contemporaries’ appreciation of George Boole by Geoff Tann

It is understandable that John Boole was impressed by his son George’s abilities, recounting how at the age of 11 years George had mastered the whole volume of a geometry textbook by John Leslie in a single day. What is more surprising is the frequency of Lincolnshire press reports extolling his abilities and promise during his lifetime, with a crescendo of eulogies after his death. George Boole was clearly recognised and appreciated by Lincoln worthies even before he became Professor at the University of Cork in 1849.

After presenting a lecture on ‘ The Life and Discoveries of Newton’ at the Lincoln Mechanics’ Institute in February 1835 (where his father was curator), 19-year old George was broadly praised by the Institute’s President, Sir Edward Bromhead, who hoped ‘that Mr. G. Boole would go on in the course he had commenced, and one day be an honour to Lincoln’. The Stamford Mercury on 13 February 1835 described the talk as a ‘very able lecture’, and George as ‘an interesting object’ with ‘a profound knowledge of the mathematics’.

At a meeting of the Lincoln Topographical Society nine years later his paper on ‘ The planetary system, and the question ‘Are the planets inhabited?’ was reported in the Stamford Mercury as a ‘learned paper, replete with profound reasoning’. The White Hart Hotel, Bailgate, which hosted a farewell dinner to George Boole, in recognition of his professorial appointment at Queen’s College, Cork. (Adam O’Meara).

National recognition of George’s ability arrived in the form of the rst gold prize for mathematics from e Royal Society for his paper On a General Method for Analysis in 1844. Bromhead presented a published copy to the Lincoln Mechanics’ Institute later that year. A year later George Boole was oered the post of President of the Lincoln Mechanics’ Institute but declined, amid allegations reported in the Lincolnshire Chronicle on 12 December 1845 that the Institute was degenerating to a Radical club-house. The rector of South Hykeham (and a Minster Yard resident) J. Osmond Dakeyne asserted to the local paper that his appointment ‘did it honour. He and his analytical researches obtained the gold medal of the Royal Society and achieved European fame’.

In August 1849 the impending loss to Lincoln following Boole’s appointment as Professor of Mathematics in the Royal College at the University of Cork prompted a public meeting at publisher William Brookes’ premises. At this gathering, it was resolved that the post would be an ‘honour justly due his high talent (which has already attained European reputation), and also to his admirable character, and measure likely to conduce to the success of the Institution with which he will be hereafter connected. at we regret the loss of Mr. Boole from amongst us, and are anxious to show by the presentation of some Testimonial, our esteem for him as a friend, a citizen, and a man’. The meeting’s intention was to present Boole with ‘some valuable scientic instrument’. Separately, the Lincoln Mechanics’ Institute opted to provide a ‘framed and glazed address on parchment’ at a cost of £5 5s.

Money was raised rapidly for the civic testimonial but the presentation had to be delayed until Boole returned to Lincoln at Christmas 1849. The local press reported the presentation at the White Hart of ‘a number of very valuable books and a silver inkstand’ – in detail across two columns, with speakers noting his ‘high moral worth and intellectual capabilities, and their regret that Lincoln was about to lose so distinguished a citizen’. Mayor James Snow described Lincoln-born Boole as: held high in the estimation of the whole world as one of the first Mathematicians of the age, and it was to him that the citizens desired to present a testimonial of their esteem for the high character he bore, and for his splendid scientic attainments …In a mathematical point of view, there could be no doubt that Professor Boole stood high, since he had been called to an important office in a National Institution by the sovereign of his country. They [Lincoln residents] might not, perhaps, be able to appreciate his great talents, but they could feel a degree of pride and pleasure in seeing him so elevated.

End of extract

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