Died: 7 May 1879 in Bridge of Allen, Stirlingshire, Scotland

Philip Kelland was the son of the Rev. Phillip Kelland (died 1847), curate of Dunster, Somerset and then rector of Landcross, Devon. He studied at Queens' College, Cambridge and was coached privately by William Hopkins, graduating in 1834 as senior wrangler and first Smith's prizeman. Kelland was ordained in the Church of England and was a fellow of Queens' College during 1834-38. In 1838 he was appointed Professor of Mathematics at Edinburgh University in succession to William Wallace. He was the first English-born and wholly English-educated holder of that chair: the unsuccessful applicants included the Scots Duncan F Gregory, Edward Sang and John Scott Russell.

In Edinburgh, Kelland joined with James D Forbes, the Professor of Natural Philosophy, in supporting reforms of the Scottish university system. According to A. Grant, he came to know the Scottish Universities better even than do Scotsmen themselves. He was an effective reformer who won the respect of his colleagues, and a successful and popular teacher who gained the affection of his students. One of his students, the writer Robert Louis Stevenson, wrote kindly that:

... for all his silver hair and worn face, he was not truly old; and he had too much of the unrest and petulant fire of youth, and too much invincible innocence of mind, to play the veteran well ... as I still fancy I behold him frisking actively about the platform, pointer in hand, that which I seem to see most clearly is the way his glasses glittered with affection.

For many years, Kelland served as secretary of the Senatus of Edinburgh University. He was elected FRS in 1838 and FRSE in 1839. He was President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh during 1878-79, dying in office. He was also active in the Edinburgh Society of Arts, a member of the Board of Visitors of the Edinburgh Observatory, an examiner for several of Edinburgh's schools and colleges, and a founder and actuarial adviser of the Life Association of Scotland. For the last-mentioned, he toured Canada and the U.S.A., and published an account of his travels entitled Transatlantic Sketches. In addition to his university duties, he gave mathematical lectures to the Edinburgh Ladies' Educational Association, and he took Sunday services in some of Edinburgh's Episcopal churches. (One obituarist records that Preaching, however, was ... one of the few accomplishments in which he did not excel.) He was twice married, first to a Miss Pilkington of Dublin, and then to a Miss Boswell of Wardie. He was survived by his widow, three sons and two daughters.

Books:

1. A D D Craik, Mr Hopkins, Men: Cambridge Reform and British Mathematics in the 19th Century (Cambridge 2007)

Articles:

1. Obituary notices by A Grant, P G Tait and G Chrystal, Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin. X (1878-80), 208-211, 321-329..
2. A D D Craik, The origins of water-wave theory, Ann. Rev. Fluid Mech. (2002). 
   http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146%2Fannurev.fluid.36.050802.122118
3. G E Davie, The Democratic Intellect. (Edinburgh, 1961)
4. Robert Louis Stevenson, Some College Memories, in Memories & Portraits.

مواضيع ذات صلة

William Henry Fox Talbot

William Ferrel

Wilhelm Eduard Weber

Viktor Yakovlevich Bunyakovsky

Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier

Thomas Penyngton Kirkman

Thomas Clausen

Sir William Rowan Hamilton

Siegfried Heinrich Aronhold

Robert Richard Anstice

Pierre Ossian Bonnet

Pierre Laurent Wantzel