Prof. Thomas Mather, F.R.S

Abstract

THOMAS MATHER was a man who worked his way up to an important and honourable position from a starting condition devoid of all advantages due to financial or personal support. His early training was that of a carpenter. By strenuous evening study he won a Whitworth Scholarship at a time when these scholarships were few in number and of greater money value than is nowadays the case. With the aid of this scholarship, he supported himself at college throughout a fairly complete course of full-time study. His early education was not such as to make it possible for him to meet all the academic conditions at that time needed in order to qualify for a science degree. He could not get a degree but he could, and did, work hard at physical, mathematical, and engineering subjects, so as to leave college with a thorough grip of them. He next became an assistant to Prof. W. E. Ayrton at the start of the technical teaching work financed by the City and Guilds of London Institute. He followed Prof. Ayrton from the college at Finsbury to the one at South Kensington which is now part of the Imperial College. On the death of Prof. Ayrton he succeeded him as professor of electrical engineering. When he died on June 23, he had hVed more than eighty-one years, and during half that'period he was a fellow of the Royal Society.