by Maria Panteki
© Oxford University Press 2004 All rights reserved
Ellis, Robert Leslie (1817-1859), mathematician and classical scholar, was born on 25 August 1817 in Bath, the youngest of the six children of Francis Ellis of Bath. His father was fond of speculative inquiry and spent much time with him from an early age. He was educated at home by two private tutors, one in classics and another in mathematics. At the age of ten he read Virgil and Xenophon, as well as Cuvier's Theory of the Earth and the Edinburgh Review. He soon got involved with mechanics and made rapid progress in the calculus. Accustomed to conversing with his seniors, he picked up an elderly sobriety of manner which distinguished him from his contemporaries.
Ellis is said to have inherited his lifelong predisposition to depression and sickliness from his mother. In 1834 he became a private pupil of the Revd James Challis at Papworth Everard, near Cambridge, but due to ill health he was soon compelled to disrupt his studies and to delay his entrance to Cambridge University. In 1836 he matriculated at Trinity College as a pupil of George Peacock, who discovered with amazement that on his arrival Ellis had commenced reading Robert Woodhouse's Isoperimetrical Problems (1810). Ellis's intellect was much admired, even by his rivals.
Ellis studied mathematics on his own, but in his last years he had the advantage of the direction of William Hopkins, a well-known private tutor of tripos candidates. As his sight was weak he regularly employed someone to read for him; in this way he mastered J. H. Pratt's Mechanical Philosophy (1836), the first Cambridge treatise to present Laplace's analytical treatment of the earth's shape. Ellis deliberately evaded intimacy and his seclusion added to the depression to which he was predisposed. Nevertheless, he was highly respected, and his suggestions, when disputes arose in the Cambridge Union Society, were readily adopted. Ellis graduated as senior wrangler in 1840 (having been examined in private at his special request) and was first Smith's prizeman, and was elected fellow of Trinity several months later. He remained in Cambridge until 1849, when he ceased to be a fellow. He was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1838 and duly called to the bar in 1840, but as his elder brothers and father successively died he became heir to considerable property and thus lacked the inducement to work as a lawyer. Still, he devoted much time to the study of the civil law, leaving behind him several volumes of notes, but his ultimate ambition to be appointed professor of civil law remained unfulfilled. Ellis had further intended to enter political life in Bath; he was attached to Sir William Napier (1785-1860), and professed himself a whig.
During his residence at Cambridge, Ellis undertook, in conjunction with D. D. Heath and J. Spedding, the edition of Francis Bacon's works published between 1857 and 1874. His wide reading and intellectual labour are nowhere as evident as in the general prefaces to Bacon's philosophical writings, which were allotted to him. The deterioration of his health in 1847 prevented him from completing his project, a fact that caused him great sorrow.
Ellis had many intellectual interests but it is mathematics which features in forty out of the fifty papers which were edited after his death (by W. Walton) in a volume entitled The Mathematical and other Writings of R. L. Ellis (1863). His significant contributions date from 1837, when, together with D. F. Gregory, he founded the Cambridge Mathematical Journal. In 1843, a year before Gregory died, Ellis undertook the edition of the last two volumes, in the latter of which he inserted a memoir of his deceased friend (1845). By that time, he had furnished the journal with several papers on functional and differential equations, which revealed his skill in Laplace's and J. Fourier's analyses. Motivated by Gaskin's symbolical solution of the equation for the ellipticity of the earth, which appeared in J. Hymers's Differential Equations (1839), Ellis devoted his paper 'On the integration of certain differential equations' (1841) to a general treatment of second-order equations important in physics. This paper helped inspire George Boole's masterpiece 'On a general method in analysis' (PTRS, 134, 1844, 225-82). Ellis was particularly drawn towards subjects that involved philosophical thinking, as illustrated in his paper 'On the foundations of the theory of probabilities' (1849). Together with Boole he is regarded as a notable critic of the subjective aspects of the classical interpretation of probability theory.
Ellis expressed no desire to be appointed professor of mathematics; he occasionally gave college lectures on higher mathematics, but he never had a private pupil. After receiving his MA in 1843 he was moderator of the tripos examination in the following year, producing, together with Matthew O'Brien, a collection of the problems proposed, with their solutions. At the request of the British Association in 1845, he contributed a masterly report upon the recent progress of analysis (1846). Soon after this his health gave way altogether.
In an attempt to improve his health Ellis removed to the south of France, but after an attack of rheumatic fever at San Remo in Italy in 1849 he returned to England an invalid. He continued to travel, seeking medical help, eventually settling at Anstey Hall, Trumpington, near Cambridge, in 1853. Despite his worsening health he continued to dictate on a variety of subjects, ranging from bees' cells and Roman money to the formation of a Chinese dictionary and Boole's Laws of Thought (1854). Moreover, he read the New Testament in Swedish, translated Danish ballads, and rediscovered J. Napier's conception of logarithms. He was noted for his excellent conversational powers, the accuracy and historical framework of his speech, and his retentive memory. In his last years he lost his sight altogether. After years of acute suffering, he died on 12 May 1859 at Anstey Hall, and was buried in Trumpington churchyard. He was unmarried.
MARIA PANTEKI
Sources
H. Goodwin, 'Biographical memoir of R. L. Ellis', The mathematical and other writings of R. L. Ellis, ed. W. Walton (1863), ix-xxxvi
M. Panteki, 'Relationships between algebra, differential equations, and logic in England, 1800-1860', PhD diss., Middlesex University (CNAA), 1992
The Athenaeum (11 Feb 1860)
J. P. Norris, 'Notes, privately printed', 1853-9, Cambridge MSS, Cam.c. 859.18
J. P. Norris, 'Review of a biographical memoir of R. L. Ellis by H. Goodwin', 1863-4, Cambridge MSS, Cam.c. 864.25
L. Daston, Classical probability in the Enlightenment (1988)
Venn, Alum. Cant.
DNB
d. cert.
Archives
Trinity Cam., diaries and notebooks | Bodl. Oxf., letters to Sir William Napier
CUL, letters to Lord Kelvin
Trinity Cam., A. De Morgan, Kelvin, W. F. P. Napier, J. P. Norris, J. Spedding MSS
U. Nott., letters to C. B. Marlay
U. St Andr., corresp. with James Forbes
Likenesses
T. C. Wageman, watercolour drawing, 1844, Trinity Cam.
S. Lawrence, crayon drawing, 1849, Trinity Cam.
T. Woolner, marble bust, 1867, Trinity Cam.
S. Lawrence, portrait, priv. coll.
engraving (after portrait by S. Lawrence), repro. in R. L. Ellis, The mathematical and other writings of R. L. Ellis, ed. W. Walton (1863)
Wealth at death
under £140,000: probate, 25 June 1859, CGPLA Eng. & Wales
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