William Spottiswoode

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Born: 11 Jan 1825 in London, England
Died: 27 June 1883 in London, England

 

William Spottiswoode's father was a member of the printing firm of Eyre and Spottiswoode, the Queen's printers, and he was related to John Spottiswood who was archbishop of St Andrews. William attended school in Laleham, then went to Eton College, one of the most prestigious schools in England situated on the Thames near London. From Eton he went to another top school in Harrow School, another prestigious school in Greater London.

From Harrow, Spottiswoode was awarded a Lyon Scholarship to attend Balliol College, Oxford which he entered in 1842. Three years later he graduated with a First Class degree in mathematics. In 1846 and 1847 he was awarded mathematics scholarships at Balliol College where he became a lecturer in mathematics.

In 1846 his father died and Spottiswoode became Queen's Printer. In the following year his first mathematical publication appeared Meditationes Analyticae. Herbert Rix, writing in [1], describes Spottiswoode's mathematical contributions:-

His mathematical work was described as 'the incarnation of symmetry'. Besides supplying new proofs by elegant methods of known theorems, he did abundance of important original work. His series of memoirs on the contact of curves and surfaces, contributed to the 'Philosophical Transactions' of 1862 and subsequent years, mainly gave him his high rank as a mathematician. He was also the author in 1851 of the first elementary treatise on determinants, and to his treatise much of the rapid development of that subject is attributable.

In 1853 Spottiswoode was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. Spottiswoode was appointed president of the mathematical section of the British Association in 1865.

Around 1870 there were major changes to the direction of his research. This was a time when he received high office in a number of societies, being president of the London Mathematical Society from 1870 to 1872 and, in 1871, being elected treasure of the Royal Society of London. Spottiswoode's research changed to physical topics, and from 1871 he studied the polarisation of light and later he studied electrical discharge in rarefied gases.

In 1878 Spottiswoode was elected president of the Royal Society of London, and in the same year he was president of the British Association for its Dublin meeting. At the Dublin meeting he gave his presidential address on the growth of mechanised invention applied to mathematics.

Spottiswoode published 99 papers and several books. His interests however were not confined to mathematics and physics since he was also a leading expert on European languages and on oriental languages.

He died of typhoid while still president of the Royal Society.