by P. H. Roberts, rev.
© Oxford University Press 2004 All rights reserved
Havelock, Sir Thomas Henry (1877-1968), mathematician, was born in Newcastle upon Tyne on 24 June 1877, the son of Michael Havelock, marine engineer, of Newcastle, and his wife, Elizabeth Burn Bell. Four of their six children (two boys and two girls) survived to maturity, but only the eldest girl married. For most of his life Thomas Havelock lived with his younger sister and his brother, who became a director of the Moor Line, and he shared the family love of ships. At first Thomas hoped to become a draughtsman in the Neptune Works of Swan, Hunter, and Wigham Richardson on Tyneside, but while waiting for an apprenticeship to fall vacant he entered Durham College of Physical Science in Newcastle upon Tyne, and a natural gift for mathematics and physics soon became apparent. Having completed a BSc course in 1895 at the age of eighteen, he stayed for a further two years of postgraduate studies in the college before entering St John's College, Cambridge, in 1897, first as a pensioner and the following year as a scholar. Nevertheless, all his life he retained his love of ships.
In 1898 Havelock suffered serious injury when some railings, which he had climbed in order to get a better view of Lord Kitchener, who had come to receive an honorary degree, gave way outside the Senate House at Cambridge; as a result his health was impaired for the rest of his life.
Despite the consequent interruption of his studies Havelock was placed in the second division of class one in part one of the mathematical tripos in 1901, with J. E. Wright alone above him in the first division. In 1902 he shared the Smith's prize with Wright, and was awarded an Isaac Newton studentship. He was elected to a six-year Gregson fellowship in his college in 1903, but in 1906 returned to Armstrong College (as the Durham College of Science had become in 1904) as a special lecturer in applied mathematics. He received a DSc there (by examination) in 1907. He was elected to fellowship of the Royal Society in 1914, and the following year Armstrong College created a second chair of (applied) mathematics especially for him. His damaged health ruled out active service in the First World War.
Havelock's scientific work lay in two main areas: the passage of light through materials and naval hydrodynamics. Although he wrote some twenty papers on the first of these, they did not attract lasting attention, and Havelock himself appears to have lost interest in optics by 1930. He did, however, do pioneering work on the wave resistance of ships and related problems, topics which interested him into his eighties. His most significant contributions started in 1923 after he had discovered a much neglected, but fundamental, paper by J. H. Michell (1898). In following years he applied and generalized its methods with conspicuous success. He discovered much about the way a ship's resistance to motion depends on the form of its hull. Later in his life he answered sophisticated questions about the trim and the heaving and pitching of a ship. He constantly compared his theory with experiment, and sought to improve the extent of the agreement between the two.
Havelock's impact on this branch of naval architecture was strong and fully recognized in his lifetime. He was made an honorary member of the Institution of Naval Architects in 1943, and awarded its first William Froude gold medal in 1956. Durham University conferred an honorary DCL in 1958, and Hamburg an honorary DSc in 1960; he became an honorary fellow of St John's in 1945. The French Académie des Sciences made him a corresponding member in 1947. He was the featured guest of the United States Society of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineers in 1950, and in 1963 the United States office of naval research paid him the unusual compliment of collecting together and publishing sixty of his papers on hydrodynamics. He was knighted in 1951.
In 1928 Havelock became head of both the pure and the applied mathematics departments in Armstrong College. He maintained strong links with the department of naval architecture, of which he became honorary acting head for three years from 1941, when Sir Westcott Abell retired. He was vice-principal of Armstrong College from 1933 to 1937, and took a leading part in the negotiations which brought it and the College of Medicine together to form King's College of the federal University of Durham at Newcastle upon Tyne. He was sub-rector of King's College from 1937 to 1942, and retired from his chair in 1945. His work for the university was marked in 1968 by the opening of Havelock Hall for student residence.
Havelock owed much of his success, and perhaps also his longevity, to the devoted care of his sister, Alice, who survived his death, at their home, 8 Westfield Drive, Gosforth, on 1 August 1968, by only a few weeks.
P. H. ROBERTS, rev.
Sources
Cambridge Express (26 Nov 1898)
Cambridge Weekly News (25 Nov 1898)
J. H. Michell, Philosophical Magazine, 5th ser., 45 (1898)
P. H. Roberts, Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society, 2 (1970)
A. M. Binnie and P. H. Roberts, Memoirs FRS, 17 (1971), 327-77
The collected papers of Sir Thomas Havelock on hydrodynamics, ed. W. C. S. Wigley, US Office of Naval Research, ACR-103 (1963)
CGPLA Eng. & Wales (1968)
Archives
U. Newcastle, Robinson L., papers
Wealth at death
£114,063: probate, 30 Aug 1968, CGPLA Eng. & Wales
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