George C. Bompas

George Cox Bompas (18 April 1827 – 23 May 1905) was a British solicitor and astronomer.

Bompas was born in Bloomsbury. He was the second son of Serjeant Charles Carpenter Bompas.^[1] His brother was William Bompas.^[2]

Bompas was admitted as a solicitor in 1850 and continued to practice until 1903.^[1] He worked for the law firm Bischoff, Coxe and Bompas and was a solicitor for several of their companies. He later was employed as a lawyer in the George Earl Church debt contract with Bolivia.^[3]

He married May Anne Scott Buckland, daughter of Rev. William Buckland, in 1860. They had four children.^[1] Bompas took interest in astronomy and studied periodic meteor showers and the Zodiacal light. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society on 14 December 1894.^[4] He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, the Geological Society and the Paleontological Society.^[1]

In 1896, Bompas authored a paper for the Victoria Institute of which he was a member titled "On evolution and design" which argued for a form of theistic evolution.^[5] This was controversial because such a position usually invited disapproval from the Victoria Institute's membership who favoured creationism. However, Bompas was a solicitor from a well-regarded Baptist family so his paper received an unusually mild reaction.^[5]