by A. E. L. Davis
© Oxford University Press 2004 All rights reserved
Cave, Beatrice Mabel Cave-Browne- (1874-1947), applied mathematician, was born on 30 May 1874 at 7 Kempshott Road, Streatham Common, London; her sister Evelyn [see below] was also born there. They were respectively the second and third daughters of Sir Thomas Cave-Browne-Cave (1835-1924), civil servant, sometime deputy accountant-general for the army, and his wife, Blanche Matilda Mary Anne Milton (d. 1928). The composite surname of the family came about as the result of marriage and acquisition of property over several centuries, while a baronetcy in the family was created by Charles I. Both sisters tended to use the single surname Cave professionally (Beatrice adopted it also for some publications).
All three sisters were educated at home. In 1895 Beatrice and Evelyn took the entrance examination to Girton College, Cambridge, and were accepted together: Jeanette, the eldest, chose to remain at home. The family was completed by two younger brothers, both of whom went into the engineering branch of the navy, and transferred to the Royal Air Force on its formation in 1918: neither attended a university. However, the career of Thomas Reginald, the elder, occasionally impinged on the distinct interests of his sisters--first as an aeronautical engineer in the services, and then, when the airship branch of the RAF closed down in 1930, as professor of engineering at the University College of Southampton.
Beatrice gained the title of a second-class degree in the mathematical tripos part one in 1898; she went on in 1899 to take part two, and was placed in the third class. She taught mathematics at Clapham high school for eleven years and then in 1913 started work in the Galton Laboratory at University College, London, under Professor Karl Pearson. There, co-operative work was customary, and she contributed to two joint papers for Biometrika (in which her sister's work of 1904 was cited). She also produced statistical analyses for the Board of Trade and the Treasury. In 1916 she carried out research of her own into the mathematics of aeronautics for the Admiralty air department, the Air Board of the Air Ministry, and the aircraft production department, for whom she wrote reports, and two confidential information memoranda of significance--'Loads on tail planes in high speed flight' and 'Loads on wing structure in flight' (June 1917)--whose publication was prohibited by the Official Secrets Act for fifty years. It may have been to compensate for this non-recognition of her originality that she was appointed MBE in 1920, 'for services in connection with the War'. On her application form for election to (associate) fellowship of the Royal Aeronautical Society in 1919 she listed aircraft stability and performance, and propeller efficiency among her research interests. Though her brother Thomas joined the society about the same time, there is no evidence of any mutual interaction between Beatrice and Thomas, whose expertise in aeronautics was certainly more practical.
After the war Beatrice moved to Imperial College, University of London, where she was appointed assistant to the Zaharoff professor of aviation, Leonard Bairstow, and collaborated with him on two Royal Society publications examining fluid motion. However, her later work did not show the intensity she had brought to independent investigations under wartime conditions. She retired in 1937 and continued to live at 36 North Side, Streatham Common, where she died on 9 July 1947.
(Frances) Evelyn Cave-Browne-Cave (1876-1965), mathematician, was born at the family home on 21 February 1876. She obtained the title of a first-class degree in part one of the Cambridge mathematical tripos in 1898, placed between fourth and fifth wranglers, and in part two in 1899. Independently, and then as a research student at Girton in 1901-3, she carried out statistical research directed by Pearson and published two papers (the first jointly with Pearson) in Proceedings of the Royal Society (70, 1902, and 74, 1904-5) on patterns in barometric measurements. She undertook no further research: in 1903 she was appointed resident lecturer in mathematics at Girton, and in 1918 she succeeded Miss Meyer as director of studies. During discussions concerning his academic appointment in 1930, Thomas confirmed that his sister believed the primary function of a university was to teach, and that trouble taken with weaker students was more rewarding because one could make a proportionately greater improvement. Evelyn was a gifted teacher who was especially talented in helping less able students: a stammer that affected her normal speech completely disappeared when she was teaching.
Cavey, as she was sometimes affectionately known, was an archetypal Girtonian of austere and old-fashioned tastes. She was fond of gardening and a former student particularly remembered the zest with which she chopped wood for her sitting-room fire. She was mainly responsible for drafting the original college statutes in 1924. She retired in 1936 to live with her siblings in Southampton, and died in Shedfield Lodge Nursing Home, Shedfield, Hampshire, on 30 March 1965.
A. E. L. DAVIS
Sources
K. T. Butler and H. I. McMorran, eds., Girton College register, 1869-1946 (1948) [student list, 1895; staff list, 1903]
Lady Jeffreys, Girton Review, Easter term (1965), 32-4
Burke, Baronetage and knightage
Debrett's Peerage
J. Foster, The peerage, baronetage, and knightage of the British empire for 1883, 2 [1883]
LondG (26 March 1920) [3rd suppl.]
A. W. Thorp, ed., Burke's handbook (1921)
War Office Lists (1879)
War Office Lists (1900)
PRO, AIR 1 2427/305/29/1001
private information (2004)
correspondence, Girton Cam.
CGPLA Eng. & Wales (1947)
CGPLA Eng. & Wales (1965) [Frances Evelyn Cave-Browne-Cave]
Wealth at death
£13,068 12s. 8d.: probate, 8 Oct 1947, CGPLA Eng. & Wales
£22,682--Frances Evelyn Cave-Browne-Cave: probate, 23 June 1965, CGPLA Eng. & Wales
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