MacTutor
Herbert Richmond
Times obituary
CAMBRIDGE MATHEMATICIAN
Mr. H. W. Richmond, F.R.S., the distinguished geometer, died yesterday at King's College, Cambridge (of which college he was Senior Fellow), at the age of 84.
Herbert William Richmond was born on July 17, 1863, the eldest son of the late Rev. W. H. Richmond. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and at King's College, Cambridge, where he read mathematics and was placed third Wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos of 1885, taking his B.A. degree in the same year He had been a Barnes Scholar of the University and was placed in the First Division in Part III of the Mathematical Tripos in 1886. Elected a Fellow of King's in 1888, he remained a Fellow until his death, residing in college continuously save for the war period 1916-19. In 1911 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and was President of the London Mathematical Society from 1920 to 1922. He received the honorary degree of LL.D. from St. Andrew's.
Richmond's mathematical research lay in the field of pure and algebraic geometry though he also lectured to generations of undergraduates on differential geometry. His papers always showed the characteristics of elegance and apparent effortlessness. His forte lay in seeing the relationships between apparently diverse theorems, and he was especially at home in the projective properties of figures in spaces of more than three dimensions, but he did not disdain the consideration of elementary theorems in plane geometry: he would remark a little sadly that his results were remote from the trends of modern geometry.
During the 1914-18 war, Richmond joined Professor A. V. Hill and the late Sir Ralph Fowler in researches in anti-aircraft gunnery at the Royal Naval Gunnery School on Whale Island, Portsmouth; he was part author of a pamphlet on the effects on high-angle projectories of winds varying with height, and he collaborated in certain investigations on spinning shells which subsequently became classical.
Richmond had other deep interests. In his younger days, he was an ardent photographer of birds and regularly spent parts of his vacations photographing seabirds and their nests in the Orkneys and Shetlands. Throughout his life a keen naturalist, he was also much interested in music—a work on music was presented to him by his colleagues at King's on the occasion of his eighteenth birthday. But no bare recital of his achievements and interests can possibly convey the true flavour of the man: his emphatic modesty, his engaging humour, his humanity, his outstanding sympathy with men of all generations, and his impatience with anything pretentious or shoddy.
CAMBRIDGE MATHEMATICIAN
Mr. H. W. Richmond, F.R.S., the distinguished geometer, died yesterday at King's College, Cambridge (of which college he was Senior Fellow), at the age of 84.
Herbert William Richmond was born on July 17, 1863, the eldest son of the late Rev. W. H. Richmond. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and at King's College, Cambridge, where he read mathematics and was placed third Wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos of 1885, taking his B.A. degree in the same year He had been a Barnes Scholar of the University and was placed in the First Division in Part III of the Mathematical Tripos in 1886. Elected a Fellow of King's in 1888, he remained a Fellow until his death, residing in college continuously save for the war period 1916-19. In 1911 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and was President of the London Mathematical Society from 1920 to 1922. He received the honorary degree of LL.D. from St. Andrew's.
Richmond's mathematical research lay in the field of pure and algebraic geometry though he also lectured to generations of undergraduates on differential geometry. His papers always showed the characteristics of elegance and apparent effortlessness. His forte lay in seeing the relationships between apparently diverse theorems, and he was especially at home in the projective properties of figures in spaces of more than three dimensions, but he did not disdain the consideration of elementary theorems in plane geometry: he would remark a little sadly that his results were remote from the trends of modern geometry.
During the 1914-18 war, Richmond joined Professor A. V. Hill and the late Sir Ralph Fowler in researches in anti-aircraft gunnery at the Royal Naval Gunnery School on Whale Island, Portsmouth; he was part author of a pamphlet on the effects on high-angle projectories of winds varying with height, and he collaborated in certain investigations on spinning shells which subsequently became classical.
Richmond had other deep interests. In his younger days, he was an ardent photographer of birds and regularly spent parts of his vacations photographing seabirds and their nests in the Orkneys and Shetlands. Throughout his life a keen naturalist, he was also much interested in music—a work on music was presented to him by his colleagues at King's on the occasion of his eighteenth birthday. But no bare recital of his achievements and interests can possibly convey the true flavour of the man: his emphatic modesty, his engaging humour, his humanity, his outstanding sympathy with men of all generations, and his impatience with anything pretentious or shoddy.
You can see the original newsprint at THIS LINK
