Lincolnshire Day

Local History

Famous Yellowbellies

George Boole (1815-1964) invented Boolean algebra. He was born in and first introduced his theory on symbolic logic in a paper on calculus that was awarded the Royal Medal from the Royal Society of London in 1844. He was in Cambridge while he was the editor of the Cambridge Mathematical Journal in England. He was also elected as the yearly Fellow of scientists to the Royal Society in 1857. His knowledge was held as a quiet secret for many years until his theory of logical expressions became more widely used in the field of electronics in 1938.

James Ward Usher was an extremely talented jeweller, but is best remembered for his passion for collecting works of art. These are now housed in Lincoln's Usher Gallery. The Usher Art Gallery was officially opened on the 25th May, 1927 by the Prince of Wales. Over the years, the collection has been added to and the gallery continues to grow.

Sir Isaac Newton (1643 - 1727) was the greatest English mathematician of his generation. He laid the foundation for differential and integral calculus. His work on optics and gravitation make him one of the greatest scientists the world has known. He was born in Woolsthorpe, near Grantham.

Sir John Franklin (1786-1847) was an officer in the Royal Navy and an Arctic explorer. He was born in Spilsby, Lincolnshire and joined the navy at the age of 15. Although he took part in the great sea battle of Trafalgar, he is best remembered for his surveys of the Arctic. He made maps of over 3000 miles of the coastline of north Canada. He died in 1847, on his last Arctic expedition to find the North-West Passage.

Born in Donington, Lincolnshire, Matthew Flinders (1774 -1814) was one of the most successful navigators and cartographers of his age. In a career that spanned just over twenty years, he sailed with Captain William Bligh, circumnavigated Australia and encouraged the use of that name for the continent. He survived shipwreck and disaster only to be imprisoned as a spy. He identified and corrected the effect upon compass readings of iron components and equipment on board wooden ships and he wrote what may be the seminal work on early Australian exploration A Voyage To Terra Australis.