Robert Leslie Ellis

Robert Leslie Ellis (25 August 1817 – 12 May 1859) was an English polymath, remembered principally as a mathematician and editor of the works of Francis Bacon.

Biography Robert Leslie Ellis was the youngest of six children of Francis Ellis (1772–1842) of Bath and his wife Mary née Kilbee (1777–1847). He was named after his paternal grandfather Robert Ellis and his wife Penelope née Leslie with ‘Leslie’ being a second surname not a forename.

Educated privately, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1836, graduating as Senior Wrangler in 1840 and elected Fellow of Trinity shortly afterwards. Although he had also entered the Inner Temple in 1838, was called to the bar in 1840, and later helped William Whewell (his eventual brother-in-law via sister 'Fanny')

Leslie translated Dante, Roman law texts and Danish ballads; a gentle melancholia suffuses the lines of his own poetry which he left in manuscript.