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J Henry Whitehead
Times obituary
OXFORD CHAIR OF MATHEMATICS
Professor J. H. C. Whitehead, F.R.S., Waynflete Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Magdalen College, died suddenly yesterday at the age of 55, our New York Correspondent reports. He had been visiting the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton during the present term.
John Henry Constantine Whitehead was the son of the Right Rev. Henry Whitehead, D.D., sometime Bishop of Madras. He was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, where he was a Williams Exhibitioner and Honorary Scholar and, after taking the double first in the honors, was elected to a fellowship at his college as a tutor in mathematics. For three years before that, he had studied under Professor Oswald Veblen at Princeton as a Commonwealth scholar, and in 1932 he published, with Professor Veblen, The Foundations of Differential Geometry. He became Waynflete Professor in 1947. During the war, he served with the Admiralty and the Foreign Office. He was elected to a fellowship of the Royal Society in 1944 and he was president of the London Mathematical Society from 1953 to 1955. He was recently occupied with researches in algebraic topology.
Whitehead married Barbara Sheila Carew Smyth in 1934, by whom he had two sons.
_______________________________________________
A GREAT MATHEMATICIAN
A correspondent writes:
Professor J. H. C. Whitehead was one of our greatest mathematicians. His contributions to topology were both massive and fundamental. He also had an international reputation as a geometer and as an algebraist. In research he went from strength to strength. Profound study and ever-growing creative powers were seldom better used.
Henry Whitehead, as he was known, was Waynflete Professor of Pure Mathematics at Oxford. He lived in the village of Noke, where his wife Barbara ran a farm in which he took the liveliest interest. Their exuberant hospitality brought many and varied friends to Manor Farm, as it had done previously to their house in north Oxford. They shared great zest for life and enjoyed a marriage of surpassing happiness.
Whitehead was born in India in 1905. His father, Bishop of Madras and brother of the philosopher, sent him to Eton, a school for which he always had the highest regard. He went on to read mathematics at Balliol under H.W. Nicholson. After graduating, he first tried financial work in the City but soon decided on a university career. In 1928, he went to Princeton for three years as a Commonwealth Fellow to study geometry under Veblen. It was there that his intellect was first challenged by the great problems of topology. After getting his Ph.D., he joined Veblen in writing a monograph on geometry, which is now regarded as a classic.
On his return to Oxford as a Tutorial Fellow at Balliol, he plunged into college life with huge enjoyment. He was an inspiring teacher, a wonderful talker, and a lover of sport, especially cricket and skiing. After his marriage in 1934, he began to publish those pioneering studies which made him famous. During the war, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society while on Admiralty work, and after the war, he succeeded Dixon as Waynflete Professor. This made him a Fellow of Magdalen, where he continued to enjoy many aspects of college life. He inspired a lively group of research students, some of whom have now established reputations on their own. As well as his great love and knowledge of mathematics, he was able to convey the deep satisfaction it can bring. Through the British Mathematical Colloquium and the London Mathematical Society, the invigorating effect of his personality was felt far beyond Oxford; students came to him from every corner of the world.
Last year he felt ready to return, with vastly increased powers and strengths, to those problems which had challenged him as a student. Accordingly, he went on sabbatical leave to the United States, and it was there in Princeton that he died.
________________________________________________
C. A. C. writes:
No account of the life of Henry Whitehead would be complete if it did not refer to the spontaneous affection which he showed to everyone and somehow contrived to inspire in them. I have known hundreds of university professors. But there is no other one whose students could so naturally call him by his Christian name without any offense or unnaturalness. He bore no enmity of any kind, and no one could bear him any. The fact that the Mathematical Institute at Oxford, where he worked, is one of the happiest of all the university departments and laboratories anywhere is largely a tribute to his gaiety and wholesomeness of spirit. We admired and respected Professor Whitehead; but it is "Henry" that we shall miss most deeply.
________________________________________________
THIRST FOR DISCUSSION
M. H. A. N. writes:
May I add a personal note to your obituary notice of Professor J. H. C. Whitehead head? My own friendship with Henry Whitehead began in 1929 in Princeton, with his arrival there to take up a Common- wealth Fellowship. Having spent some years in the City after leaving Oxford, he arrived with a burning thirst for mathematical discussion and discovery which was never to be quenched. It made him eager all his life not only to tell about his own latest find, but also, what is rarer and more difficult, to break off his own thoughts and listen attentively to the other man's story. At the end he would understand it thoroughly, and if it had got by without mishap one felt sure that it was right. When he was appointed Wayneflete Professor at the end of the last war he set himself deliberately to build up a school of topology at Oxford, with the brilliant success that is known to all mathematicians. He liked to work on hard problems himself and he naturally attracted strong pupils rather than weak ones; but having once accepted a pupil, he took immense pains to give him help and inspiration.
His sudden death occurred at the very height of his powers and mathematical influence. He had published important new results within the last year, and we were kept aware in England of his unabated zest for the latest work of the youngest generation by his usual "newsflashes" in letters from America during the visit which was so sadly interrupted. The stated aim of the Commonwealth Fund, "the promotion of mutual amity and understanding," can rarely have been more perfectly realized than by the election of Henry Whitehead to one of the Fellowships The immediate attractiveness of his tremendous high spirits and friendly manners would not have sufficed to bring him the lasting affection of mathematical friends all over the world if it had not been backed, from his earliest days, by a most delicate perception of the thoughts and feelings of the person he was talking to, and a deep enjoyment and tolerance of all kinds of human behavior. He had the dislike of formality which is not uncommon among men of science and learning, but it was a comfortable, not an uncomfortable, informality which enabled him to soften the high and exalted as easily as he could unfreeze the young and timid. Those leisurely, searchin searching conversations, enjoyed on exactly the same terms by all comers, on a walk over the farm, with his not very obedient gun-dog, or sitting in armchairs with pencils and blocks of paper for following the details, were as refreshing and enlivening after 30 years as on the first day. Their sudden cutting off will be felt as a personal loss by all who were fortunate to know him.
You can see the original newsprint at THIS LINK and at THIS LINK
OXFORD CHAIR OF MATHEMATICS
Professor J. H. C. Whitehead, F.R.S., Waynflete Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Magdalen College, died suddenly yesterday at the age of 55, our New York Correspondent reports. He had been visiting the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton during the present term.
John Henry Constantine Whitehead was the son of the Right Rev. Henry Whitehead, D.D., sometime Bishop of Madras. He was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, where he was a Williams Exhibitioner and Honorary Scholar and, after taking the double first in the honors, was elected to a fellowship at his college as a tutor in mathematics. For three years before that, he had studied under Professor Oswald Veblen at Princeton as a Commonwealth scholar, and in 1932 he published, with Professor Veblen, The Foundations of Differential Geometry. He became Waynflete Professor in 1947. During the war, he served with the Admiralty and the Foreign Office. He was elected to a fellowship of the Royal Society in 1944 and he was president of the London Mathematical Society from 1953 to 1955. He was recently occupied with researches in algebraic topology.
Whitehead married Barbara Sheila Carew Smyth in 1934, by whom he had two sons.
_______________________________________________
A GREAT MATHEMATICIAN
A correspondent writes:
Professor J. H. C. Whitehead was one of our greatest mathematicians. His contributions to topology were both massive and fundamental. He also had an international reputation as a geometer and as an algebraist. In research he went from strength to strength. Profound study and ever-growing creative powers were seldom better used.
Henry Whitehead, as he was known, was Waynflete Professor of Pure Mathematics at Oxford. He lived in the village of Noke, where his wife Barbara ran a farm in which he took the liveliest interest. Their exuberant hospitality brought many and varied friends to Manor Farm, as it had done previously to their house in north Oxford. They shared great zest for life and enjoyed a marriage of surpassing happiness.
Whitehead was born in India in 1905. His father, Bishop of Madras and brother of the philosopher, sent him to Eton, a school for which he always had the highest regard. He went on to read mathematics at Balliol under H.W. Nicholson. After graduating, he first tried financial work in the City but soon decided on a university career. In 1928, he went to Princeton for three years as a Commonwealth Fellow to study geometry under Veblen. It was there that his intellect was first challenged by the great problems of topology. After getting his Ph.D., he joined Veblen in writing a monograph on geometry, which is now regarded as a classic.
On his return to Oxford as a Tutorial Fellow at Balliol, he plunged into college life with huge enjoyment. He was an inspiring teacher, a wonderful talker, and a lover of sport, especially cricket and skiing. After his marriage in 1934, he began to publish those pioneering studies which made him famous. During the war, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society while on Admiralty work, and after the war, he succeeded Dixon as Waynflete Professor. This made him a Fellow of Magdalen, where he continued to enjoy many aspects of college life. He inspired a lively group of research students, some of whom have now established reputations on their own. As well as his great love and knowledge of mathematics, he was able to convey the deep satisfaction it can bring. Through the British Mathematical Colloquium and the London Mathematical Society, the invigorating effect of his personality was felt far beyond Oxford; students came to him from every corner of the world.
Last year he felt ready to return, with vastly increased powers and strengths, to those problems which had challenged him as a student. Accordingly, he went on sabbatical leave to the United States, and it was there in Princeton that he died.
________________________________________________
C. A. C. writes:
No account of the life of Henry Whitehead would be complete if it did not refer to the spontaneous affection which he showed to everyone and somehow contrived to inspire in them. I have known hundreds of university professors. But there is no other one whose students could so naturally call him by his Christian name without any offense or unnaturalness. He bore no enmity of any kind, and no one could bear him any. The fact that the Mathematical Institute at Oxford, where he worked, is one of the happiest of all the university departments and laboratories anywhere is largely a tribute to his gaiety and wholesomeness of spirit. We admired and respected Professor Whitehead; but it is "Henry" that we shall miss most deeply.
________________________________________________
THIRST FOR DISCUSSION
M. H. A. N. writes:
May I add a personal note to your obituary notice of Professor J. H. C. Whitehead head? My own friendship with Henry Whitehead began in 1929 in Princeton, with his arrival there to take up a Common- wealth Fellowship. Having spent some years in the City after leaving Oxford, he arrived with a burning thirst for mathematical discussion and discovery which was never to be quenched. It made him eager all his life not only to tell about his own latest find, but also, what is rarer and more difficult, to break off his own thoughts and listen attentively to the other man's story. At the end he would understand it thoroughly, and if it had got by without mishap one felt sure that it was right. When he was appointed Wayneflete Professor at the end of the last war he set himself deliberately to build up a school of topology at Oxford, with the brilliant success that is known to all mathematicians. He liked to work on hard problems himself and he naturally attracted strong pupils rather than weak ones; but having once accepted a pupil, he took immense pains to give him help and inspiration.
His sudden death occurred at the very height of his powers and mathematical influence. He had published important new results within the last year, and we were kept aware in England of his unabated zest for the latest work of the youngest generation by his usual "newsflashes" in letters from America during the visit which was so sadly interrupted. The stated aim of the Commonwealth Fund, "the promotion of mutual amity and understanding," can rarely have been more perfectly realized than by the election of Henry Whitehead to one of the Fellowships The immediate attractiveness of his tremendous high spirits and friendly manners would not have sufficed to bring him the lasting affection of mathematical friends all over the world if it had not been backed, from his earliest days, by a most delicate perception of the thoughts and feelings of the person he was talking to, and a deep enjoyment and tolerance of all kinds of human behavior. He had the dislike of formality which is not uncommon among men of science and learning, but it was a comfortable, not an uncomfortable, informality which enabled him to soften the high and exalted as easily as he could unfreeze the young and timid. Those leisurely, searchin searching conversations, enjoyed on exactly the same terms by all comers, on a walk over the farm, with his not very obedient gun-dog, or sitting in armchairs with pencils and blocks of paper for following the details, were as refreshing and enlivening after 30 years as on the first day. Their sudden cutting off will be felt as a personal loss by all who were fortunate to know him.
