George Boole's 210th Birthday

Lincoln Castle - as viewed from a rooftop tour of Lincoln Cathedral

 On this day, November 2, in 1815 George Boole was born in Lincoln, England.

The appropriately named "Steep Street" in Lincoln, England

Lincoln, England

As George grew up, he attended primary school, but when his father's shoemaking business declined, there was no longer the means to provide George with a formal education. Undeterred, he began to educate himself. Early on, he had a strong interest in language. He may have had help with Latin from a local bookseller. In his early teens, he submitted to a local newspaper a poem he'd translated from Latin. His work was of such high quality that he was accused of plagiarism, such an accomplishment seeming impossible in one so young and uneducated Not long after this, he received math texts from someone who knew his father - and a calculus text from a local minister. Mathematics did not come as quickly to him as languages, and without a teacher, it took him many years to master calculus.

Boole's Academy - Lincoln, England

Finances continued to be a problem for the Boole family, and George began teaching at the age of 16 to support his family. By the age of 25, he opened a boarding school at 3 Pottergate in Lincoln (pictured above), and his family moved in with him there.

Plaque on George Boole's boarding school - Lincoln, England

Boole's Academy (in red brick) - Lincoln, England

The house in which he ran his boarding school was originally part of the cathedral enclave. It is on Pottergate (Street) between the cathedral and one of its arched medieval gates, the Pottergate, which can be seen at the right in the photo above - just down the street from his school. Below is a picture of the other side of the Pottergate.

The Pottergate - Lincoln, England

Pottergate Plaque - Lincoln, England

Lincoln Cathedral Tower as seen from 3 Pottergate

Passing Boole's house again on my way back up from the Pottergate to the cathedral, I decided to turn around and check out the view from the house. Sure enough, a tower of the cathedral is visible. Certainly, the Boole family and students, living nearly in the shadow of the cathedral, would have heard the bells throughout the day.

Lincoln Cathedral

Lincoln Cathedral Cloisters

Lincoln Cathedral

Lincoln Cathedral

The cathedral is such a central part of Boole's city of birth, and the boarding school he established was so close to the cathedral, that I spent a lot of time in and around the cathedral to get a sense of what he would have seen and heard. In his mid-thirties, Boole moved to Dublin and became the first professor of mathematics at Queen's College Cork, where he developed groundbreaking new areas of mathematics - not bad for a self-educated young man whose learning of mathematics came about slowly - but that's another story for another post.

For now:

HAPPY 210th BIRTHDAY, GEORGE BOOLE!!