Sir Edward Bromhead, 2nd Baronet

Sir Edward Thomas ffrench Bromhead, 2nd Baronet (26 March 1789–14 March 1855) was a British landowner and mathematician best remembered as patron of the mathematician and physicist George Green.

Born into a landed family in Lincolnshire, Bromhead was educated at the University of Glasgow and later at Caius College, Cambridge before taking up the study of law at the Inner Temple, London. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1817. Returning to Lincolnshire, he became High Steward of Lincoln.

While at Cambridge, Bromhead was a founder of the Analytical Society, a precursor of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, together with John Herschel, George Peacock and Charles Babbage, with whom he maintained a close and life-long 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).

References

* cite web
url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/101037224/
title = Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Biographical article on Bromhead (accessible only to subscribers)

* cite journal
last= Cannel
first= D. M. and Lord, N. J.
title= George Green, mathematician and physicist 1793-1841
journal=The Mathematical Gazette
month = March | year = 1993
volume =77
pages =26–51
doi= 10.2307/3619259 Mentions Bromhead's role in the career of George Green