Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Harley, Robert
HARLEY, ROBERT (1828–1910), congregational minister and mathematician, born in Liverpool on 23 Jan. 1828, was third son of Robert Harley by his wife Mary, daughter of William Stevenson, and niece of General Stevenson of Ayr, N.B. The father, after some success as a merchant, became a minister of the Wesleyan Methodist Association, and his frequent migrations on circuit gave his son Robert little opportunity of education. But his mathematical aptitude developed rapidly, and before he was seventeen he was appointed to a mathematical mastership at Seacombe, near Liverpool. He later served in the same capacity at Blackburn. In 1854 he entered the congregational ministry, and was stationed at Brighouse, Yorkshire, until 1868, filling in addition the chair of mathematics and logic at Airedale College during the latter portion of the time.
From 1868 to 1872 he was pastor of the oldest congregational church at Leicester, and from 1872 to 1881 was vice-principal of Mill Hill School, where he officiated in the chapel. At Mill Hill he was instrumental in erecting a public lecture hall where total abstinence was advocated, popular entertainments were held, and varied instruction given. From 1882 to 1885 he was principal of Huddersfield College, and from 1886 to 1890 minister of the congregational church at Oxford, where he was made hon. M.A. in 1886. Having fulfilled a ministerial appointment in Australia, he was pastor of Heath Church, Halifax, from 1892 until 1895, when he relinquished ministerial labours and settled at Forest Hill, near London. His energy and industry were unimpaired to the last; he fulfilled preaching engagements in London and the provinces, and was unceasing in the public advocacy of temperance.
Throughout his career mathematics remained Harley's chief study. He devoted much time to higher algebra, especially to the theory of the general equation of the fifth degree. His conclusions, which were published in 'Memoirs of the Manchester Lit. and Phil. Soc' 1860, xv. 172-219, were independently reached at the same time by Sir James Cockle [q. v.]. Harley's two further papers on the 'Theory of Quintics' (in 'Quarterly Journal of Mathematics' 1860-2, iii. 343-59; v. 248-60), and an exposition of Cockle's method of symmetric products in 'Phil. Trans.' (1860) attracted the attention of Arthur Cayley [q. v. Suppl. I], who carried the research further. In 1863 Harley was admitted F.R.S. He acted as secretary of the A section of the British Association at meetings at Norwich (1868) and Edinburgh (1871), and was a vice-president of the meetings at Bradford (1873), Bath (1888), and Cardiff (1891).
He failed to complete the treatise on quintics which he had begun, but continued to contribute papers of importance on pure mathematics to the transactions of various societies. A masterly sketch of the life and work of George Boole appeared in the 'British Quarterly Review' (July 1866), and a memoir of his friend, Sir James Cockle, is in the 'Proc. Roy. Soc.' vol. lix.
Harley died at Rosslyn, Westbourne Road, Forest Hill, on 26 July 1910, and was buried in Ladywell cemetery. In 1854 he married Sara, daughter of James Stroyan of Wigan; she died in 1905.
[Private information; Biograph, vi. 1881; The Times, 28 July 1910; Harley's Memoir of Sir James Cockle, Proc. Roy. Soc. lix. Men and Women of the Time, 1899; Memoir of Robert Harley by Prof. E. B. Elliott in Proc. London Math. Soc, ser. 2, vol. ix.]