Brooke is the son of Hedley Joseph Brooke, and Margaret Brooke, née Brown. He was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School, Retford, then Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. On 30 Aug 1972, he married Janice Marian Heffer.

Academic career

He was a Resident Fellow at Fitzwilliam College from 1967-68, then a Tutorial Fellow at the University of Sussex from 1968-69. He was on the faculty of Lancaster University from 1969 to 1999, rising from Lecturer to Professor of History of Science. He was Gifford Lecturer at the University of Glasgow from 1995-96 and Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at The University of Oxford from 1999-2006, where he directed the Ian Ramsey Centre there. From 2007 he has been a Fellow of Harris Manchester College and a Distinguished Fellow of the University of Durham.

He was the editor of the British Journal for the History of Science from 1989-93. He was the president of the British Society for the History of Science from 1996-98, and has been the president of Science and Religion Forum since 2006. He is also currently the president of International Society for Science and Religion.

Books

• Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (1991)
• Thinking About Matter (1995)
• Reconstructing Nature: The Engagement of Science and Religion (with G. N. Cantor, 1998)
• Science in Theistic Contexts (ed, 2001)
• Heterodoxy in Early Modern Science and Religion (ed, 2005)
• Religious Values and the Rise of Science in Europe (ed, 2005)