LORD KELVIN'S nephew and frequent deputy in the Chair of
Natural Philosophy in Glasgow, Mr. Bottomley was for nearly thirty years almost
as well known a figure as his famous uncle in the quadrangles at Gilmorehill. A
son of the late William Bottomley, merchant and J.P. of Belfast, and of Lord
Kelvin's sister, he was born at Fort Breda, County Down, in 1845, and was
educated at Queen's College, Belfast, and Trinity College, Dublin,
distinguishing himself as a student by carrying off the gold medals in Natural
Philosophy and Chemistry, and taking his degrees of B.A. and M.A. with
first-class honours. He was at first intended for the church, but abandoned that
career for the study of science. His first University appointment was that of
assistant to the late Professor Thomas Andrews, F.R.S., at Belfast, and he
filled the posts afterwards of Demonstrator, first of Chemistry and then of
Physics, in King's College, London. In 1870 he was appointed to the position of
Arnott and Thomson Demonstrator in the University of Glasgow, which associated
him closely with the work of Lord Kelvin in the Natural Philosophy class. He
resigned the post in 1899, when Lord Kelvin resigned his professorship, and he
is now occupied with the profession of electrical engineer. He has published
elementary works on Dynamics and Hydrostatics, also "Four Figure Mathematical
Tables," and various original papers in the Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society, the Philosophical Magazine, the Proceedings of the British
Association, etc. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the Royal
Society, Edinburgh, Fellow of the Chemical Society, and Member of the
Institution of Electrical Engineers and of the Physical Society.
Mr. Bottomley married first, Annie Elizabeth, daughter of the
late W. W. Heap, Manchester; and second, Eliza Jennet, daughter of the late
Charles R. Blandy, Madeira.
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Index of Glasgow Men (1909)