by F. Ursell, rev.
© Oxford University Press 2004 All rights reserved
Proudman, Joseph (1888-1975), mathematician and oceanographer, was born on 30 December 1888 at Thurston Fold Farm, Unsworth, near Bury in Lancashire, the eldest child of John Proudman (d. 1943), farm bailiff and later tenant farmer at Bold, near Widnes, Lancashire, and his wife, Nancy Blease. He attended primary schools at Unsworth and Bold. From 1902 to 1907 he was a pupil teacher at Farnworth primary school. During the winters of 1902-4 he attended evening classes at the Widnes Technical School; from 1903 to 1907 he taught for only half of each week, and during the other half he attended classes at the Widnes secondary school. In 1907 he was awarded the Tate technical science entrance scholarship at Liverpool University, where in 1910 he received a BSc (first class) with honours in mathematics. He was also awarded the Derby scholarship for mathematics and an entrance exhibition to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became a senior scholar in 1911. The following year he received a first class in schedule A and a distinction in schedule B of part two of the mathematical tripos.
Following a suggestion by Professor Horace Lamb of Manchester, Proudman started research on a problem in the theory of ocean tides which set the course for his entire subsequent career. In 1913 he became a lecturer in mathematics at Liverpool University. During the first year he had no time for research except during vacations, but he did find time to direct the postgraduate work of A. T. Doodson for the MSc degree and thus began a collaboration which continued until Doodson's death. In 1915 he also became a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and thus received an additional salary without any prescribed duties. He always said that this was of the greatest help to him. When the First World War broke out he was placed in a low medical category and did not serve in the armed forces. He spent the war years in Liverpool, except for the second half of 1918 when he worked in the research department of Woolwich arsenal. In 1916 he married, in Manchester, Rubina (d. 1958), daughter of Thomas Ormrod, insurance company manager. They had a daughter and two sons, one of whom later became professor of applied mathematics at Essex University.
In 1919 Proudman was instrumental in persuading two shipowners, C. Booth, chairman of Booth Steamship Company, and his brother, Sir Alfred Booth, chairman of Cunard, to endow the foundation of a tidal institute which was later amalgamated with the Liverpool observatory. He served as its director until 1945. Also in 1919 he was appointed professor of applied mathematics at the University of Liverpool, a post which was created for him. In 1933 he was transferred at his own request to the chair of oceanography from which he retired in 1954, when he was made professor emeritus. He took a full share in the administration of the university, serving as pro-vice-chancellor and deputy chairman of senate from 1940 to 1946 during the difficult war and post-war years. After his transfer to the oceanography chair he was chiefly responsible for shifting the emphasis of his department from marine biology to marine physics, at a time when the latter was not well catered for in Britain. He was thus responsible for giving the Liverpool school of oceanography its distinctive role.
Proudman's scientific work was concerned mainly with tidal theory, almost every aspect of which was treated by him during his scientific career, including large-scale oceanic tides, problems relating to smaller seas, and the tidal elastic yielding of the earth's crust. With Doodson he made significant improvements in tidal predictions for British ports and in charts for tidal streams and elevations in British waters. When he became professor of oceanography he widened his range of marine studies. He studied surface temperatures and salinities in the Irish Sea, and deduced from them the main patterns of circulation. His membership of the Waverley committee, set up to report on the disastrous floods of 1953, led to his important work on storm surge equations. He worked on the interaction of storm surges and tides in an estuary, and wrote an influential textbook, Dynamical Oceanography (1953), which for many years had few rivals. Nevertheless, tides remained his prime interest throughout his long career. He solved practically all the remaining tidal problems soluble within the framework of classical hydrodynamics and analytical mathematics.
Proudman was awarded the Adams prize in mathematics by the University of Cambridge in 1923 and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1925. He was appointed CBE in 1952 and was made an honorary LLD of Liverpool University in 1956. As chairman of the British National Committee for Geodesy and Geophysics he took a leading part in the negotiations of 1943 which led to the foundation of the National Institute of Oceanography. His work also received recognition from the international scientific community. In 1951-6 he was president of the International Association of Physical Oceanography, after serving as its vice-president from 1948 to 1951 and its general secretary for the preceding fifteen years. In 1944 he was the George Darwin lecturer of the Royal Astronomical Society, in 1946 he received the Alexander Agassiz medal for oceanography of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, and he was also elected a foreign member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. He received the Hughes medal of the Royal Society in 1957.
In 1958 Proudman's wife died. In 1961 he married, at Poole, Mrs Beryl Gladys Waugh Gould (née Barker), who survived him. Proudman died on 26 June 1975 at a nursing home in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, near his home at Verwood, Dorset.
F. URSELL, rev.
Sources
D. E. Cartwright and F. Ursell, Memoirs FRS, 22 (1976), 319-33
personal knowledge (1986)
RS, Proudman MSS
Archives
RS
Likenesses
W. Stoneman, photograph, 1931, NPG
Burrell & Hardman, photograph, RS; repro. in Cartwright and Ursell, Memoirs FRS, facing p. 319
Wealth at death
£45,682: probate, 28 Aug 1975, CGPLA Eng. & Wales
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