William Edge (mathematician)
Prof William Leonard Edge FRSE (November 8, 1904 – September 27, 1997) was a British mathematician most known for his work in finite geometry. Students knew him as WLE.
Life
Born in Stockport to schoolteacher parents (his father William Henry Edge being a headmaster), Edge attended Stockport Grammar School before winning a place at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1923 with an entrance scholarship, later graduating MA DSc. In 1928 Trinity College made him a Research Fellow and he was also an Allen Scholar.
In 1932 he began lecturing in Mathematics at University of Edinburgh, becoming a Reader in 1949 and full Professor in 1969. He retired in 1975.
In 1934 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker, Herbert Westren Turnbull, Edward Thomas Copson and David Gibb. He won the Society's Keith Prize for 1943-45.[1]
A lifelong bachelor and devout Roman Catholic, Edge spent his final years in the care of the Sisters of Nazareth House in Bonnyrigg, just south of Edinburgh, and died there on 27 September 1997.
References
- ↑ BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF FORMER FELLOWS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 1783 – 2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0 902 198 84 X.
- Monk, David (1998), "Obituary: Professor W. L. Edge: 1904–1997", Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society. Series II 41 (3): 631–641, doi:10.1017/S0013091500019945, ISSN 0013-0915, MR 1697595
- O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "William Edge (mathematician)", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews.
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