JAMES THOMSON BOTTOMLEY

    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.

Back to Index of Glasgow Men (1909)