Page:Lectures on Ten British Physicists of the Nineteenth Century.djvu/61



, now Lord Kelvin, was born in Belfast, Ireland, on the 26th of June, 1824. He is of Scottish-Irish descent. His father was James Thomson, then professor of mathematics in the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, who had a remarkable career; he was descended from a family of Thomsons, who had for several generations occupied a farm near Ballynahinch, County Down, in the north of Ireland. When a boy he endeavored all alone to understand the principles of drilling and in this way was led to study mathematics. As a result he was sent to a small grammar school in his native place, where he rose to be an assistant teacher. Soon he became able to attend the University of Glasgow during the winter session, by teaching in the local school during the summer.

After studying in this manner for five years he was appointed to a position in the Belfast Institution mentioned, where he was promoted to the professorship of mathematics. He was the author of an algebra, which was popular with teachers for many years, and his reputation was such that in 1832 he was appointed professor of mathematics in the University of Glasgow.

William Thomson was then six years old, and his brother James Thomson nearly two years older. They were educated together at home by their father, and in 1834 they became students together at the University of Glasgow. At the Scottish Universities the conditions for entrance, were then, and still are, rather loose—no inferior limit to the age, and no entrance examinations to pass. William Thomson, when he entered, was but little over ten years of age. He studied for six years.