by John Stewart
© Oxford University Press 2004 All rights reserved
Levy, Hyman (1889-1975), mathematician and socialist activist, was born on 28 February 1889 in Edinburgh, the second of four sons and third of eight children of Marcus Levy, picture dealer of Edinburgh, and his wife, Minna Cohen. Their Zionist and socialist teachings were a strong formative influence. Levy was educated at George Heriot's School and then at the University of Edinburgh from which he received, in 1911, a first-class honours degree in mathematics and physics. As the winner of a Ferguson scholarship, an 1851 Exhibition scholarship, and a Carnegie research fellowship, Levy was advised to pursue further study at the University of Cambridge. This he declined to do, however, on the grounds that Cambridge was deeply complicit in Britain's class society; he chose instead to follow his research interests at the University of Göttingen. He returned to Britain on the outbreak of the First World War and, after a brief and not altogether happy period in the Royal Flying Corps, joined the National Physical Laboratory, where he stayed until 1920. He married Marion Aitken Fraser (a devout Presbyterian) in 1918; they had two sons and one daughter. In 1920 Levy went to the Royal College of Science (Imperial College) where he remained for the rest of his working life, becoming a professor in 1923, head of the mathematics department in 1946, dean, also in 1946, and professor emeritus on his retirement in 1954. Other honours included being made a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1916. He was a member of the council of the London Mathematical Society (1929-31) and its vice-president (1931-2).
Levy was a prolific author on both mathematical and social topics. His particular academic field was numerical methods, and among his early and late books were Numerical Studies in Differential Equations (1934) and Finite Difference Equations (1958). To understand Levy it is necessary to acknowledge the importance of his social philosophy. Appalled by the social and human consequences of the poverty of the Edinburgh working class among whom he grew up, and influenced by his parents, Levy was attracted from an early age to the doctrine of socialism. His perception of the class-divided nature of contemporary society was reinforced by his educational experiences, and he helped found a branch of the Fabian Society at Edinburgh University. Science, furthermore, was not for Levy separate from society, and scientific rationalism--in due course in his own case in the form of Marxism--was the tool which would liberate humanity from its present ills. This was specifically articulated in his Modern Science, published in 1939. Scientific rationalism also led Levy to be a lifelong member of the National Secular Society and, at one point, a director of the Rationalist Press Association.
It was directly in the field of politics that Levy sought to promote his vision of the role of science and scientific method. He was to remark in later life that he had been expelled from both the Labour Party and the Communist Party, and it was with the former that he first, in the 1920s, made an impact. By this time he had already gained practical political experience through his involvement with the National Union of Scientific Workers and as an election campaign speaker. Levy was instrumental in having the Labour Party create an advisory committee on science, and he served as its chairman from 1924 to 1930.
In common with other such committees, however, this had little real impact on Labour Party policy. By the late 1920s, as a result of his union activities, his involvement with the Central Labour College, and his lack of faith in the Labour Party leadership, Levy was increasingly moving in communist circles. From 1930 he was officially a Communist Party member, and for more than twenty years thereafter he was to be one of that organization's most prominent spokesmen on scientific matters. One important medium through which Levy was able to express his views on science and society in the 1930s was radio broadcasting. He was involved in a number of series--for example 'Scientific research and social needs', on which he collaborated with Julian Huxley. Levy also communicated his message to the labour movement and to the wider public through public speaking--at which he was especially adept--and newspaper and journal articles, and books.
When the Second World War broke out Levy supported the official Moscow and Communist Party line, that Germany and Britain were involved in an imperialist war. When the Soviet Union was invaded, Levy once again followed the party line, and so came to support the war effort. His loyalty to the Communist Party was, however, severely tested in the post-war era. Levy was deeply shocked by the revelations of antisemitism in the Soviet Union, and in late 1956 he was part of a British Communist delegation to that country charged with investigating the abuses associated with Stalin's regime. His findings and their subsequent publication--ultimately in Jews and the National Question (1958)--set in train the events which led to his expulsion from the Communist Party in 1958. Despite hopes on Levy's part of a political reconciliation this breach proved final and marked the effective end of his political career.
Levy's was in many respects a remarkable, and very twentieth-century, life. From his upbringing among the Edinburgh working class he went on to a distinguished academic career at London University while engaging wholeheartedly in a commitment to Marxist socialism. He was also, it would appear, greatly respected by his friends and colleagues for his warmth and kindness. Levy died on 27 February 1975 at his home, 25A Home Park Road, Wimbledon, Surrey.
JOHN STEWART
Sources
G. Werskey, The visible college (1978); repr. (1988)
DNB
W. McGucken, Scientists, society and state: the social relations of science movement in Great Britain, 1931-1947 (1984)
The Times (1 March 1975)
D. S. Murray, 'Hyman Levy: man of action', The Freethinker (April 1975), 50, 52
private information (2004)
d. cert.
Archives
FILM BBC Film Library, interview with Esther Rantzen (1975)
Wealth at death
£12,754: probate, 27 July 1975, CGPLA Eng. & Wales
[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31356]
GO TO THE OUP ARTICLE (Sign-in required)