Bill Ferrar

Bill Ferrar
Born (1893-01-22)January 22, 1893
Bristol, England
Died January 22, 1990(1990-01-22) (aged 97)
Oxford, England
Fields Mathematics

Dr William Leonard Ferrar FRSE (21 October 1893 – 22 January 1990) was an English mathematician. He focused upon interpolation theory and number theory.

Early life

Ferrar was born on 21 October 1893 in St Pauls, Bristol, the son of George William Persons Ferrar, a lamplighter, and his wife Maria Susannah Ferrar.[1]

He attended Bristol Grammar School. In 1912, he gained a place at The Queen's College in Oxford, winning the Junior Mathematical Scholarship in 1914.[2] His studies were interrupted by the First World War during which he first spent as a telephonist in the artillery then as an Intelligence Officer in France.

He returned to Oxford in 1919 and graduated MA in 1920, and later received a doctorate (DSc).[3]

Career

He spent his first 4 years working in Bangor then was invited to Edinburgh University by Edmund Whittaker as a lecturer in Mathematics. Here he worked with Edward Copson and Alec Aitken.[4] There he wrote papers on convergent series, interpolation theory, and number theory.

In 1925 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Edmund Whittaker, Edward Copson, Sir Charles Galton Darwin and David Gibb.[5]

In the autumn of 1925 he took up a new role at Oxford University

From its creation until 1933, he was the editor at Oxford of the Quarterly Journal of Mathematics in which he published many papers. In 1937, he became the bursar of Hertford College, Oxford which he was employed at for 22 years. After being the bursar in 1959 he became the Principal of the college.[2] In 1947 he belated applied for a doctorate and received a DSc.

He died in Oxford on 22 January 1990. He is buried in Wolvercote Cemetery.[6]

Publications

Artistic Recognition

His portrait was painted by Ruskin Spear in 1965.[7]

Family

He was married to Edna Ferrar (1898-1986)

His son was Michael Ferrar.

References

  1. ↑ BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF FORMER FELLOWS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 1783 – 2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0 902 198 84 X.
  2. 1 2 "William Leonard Ferrar Biography". www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk. School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland. Retrieved 2 July 2015.
  3. ↑ BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF FORMER FELLOWS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 1783 – 2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0 902 198 84 X.
  4. ↑ http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/Biographies/Ferrar.html
  5. ↑ BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF FORMER FELLOWS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 1783 – 2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0 902 198 84 X.
  6. ↑ https://billiongraves.com/grave/William-Leonard-Ferrar/8890741
  7. ↑ http://joedonaghy.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/william-leonard-ferrar-1893-1990.html
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