The Lincoln Mechanics’ Institute was established in 1833 at Sheep market, Lincoln. George Boole (1815–1864), mathematician and logician, was an original member and the institution provided him with a source for reading and the stimuli of lectures and classes. Boole had the opportunity to mix with such prominent men in Lincoln as Dr Edward Parker Charlesworth, the physician, and Thomas Cooper, the radical thinker and Chartist.