Henry James Brooke

Henry James Brooke (1771–1857) was an English crystallographer.

Life[]

Brooke was the son of a broadcloth manufacturer, born in Exeter on 25 May 1771. He studied for the bar, but went into business in the Spanish wool trade, South American mining companies, and the successively.^[1]

Brooke's hobbies were mineralogy, geology, and botany. His large collections of shells and of minerals were presented to the University of Cambridge, while a portion of his collection of engravings was given by him to the British Museum. He was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1815, Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1818, Fellow of the Royal Society in 1819, and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1825.^[2] . He discovered thirteen new mineral species.^[1]

Brooke died at on 26 June 1857 and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery.^[1] The surgeon Charles Brooke was his son.^[3]

Works[]

Brooke published a Familiar Introduction to Crystallography, London, 1823; and contributed the articles on "Crystallography" and "Mineralogy" in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, in which he first introduced six primary crystalline systems.^[1]

See also[]

• Brookite

References[]

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1886). "Brooke, Henry James". Dictionary of National Biography. 6. London: Smith, Elder & Co.