Kathleen Ollerenshaw
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| Kathleen Ollerenshaw | |
 Signing a book at in the Alan Turing Building
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| Born | October 1, 1912 Withington, Manchester, Lancashire, England |
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Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw D.Phil., DBE (b. October 1, 1912, Withington, Manchester) is a mathematician and a politician. Born Kathleen Timpson, as a child she loved doing arithmetic problems. Although deaf since age eight, she gained a place at Somerville College Oxford University to study mathematics, despite her teacher's discouragement. She bluffed her way through the interview by guessing the question 'What did you do in the summer holidays?'. She went on to complete a doctorate at Somerville in 1945 on "Critical Lattices" under the supervision of Theo Chaundy, having already published five research papers.
She was married to Colonel Robert Ollerenshaw, to whom she became engaged as an undergraduate. He was a distinguished military surgeon, a pioneer of medical illustration and had been High Sheriff of Greater Manchester from 1978 to 1979.
After the second world war the Ollerenhaws moved to Manchester, and Kathleen worked as a part-time lecturer in the Mathematics Department at Manchester University and continued her work on lattices. In 1949 she was given her first hearing aid and although crude it enabled her to hear many things she could not before. In Manchester she began her political and public service career.
Ollerenshaw served as a Conservative Councillor for Rusholme for twenty six years, became Lord Mayor of Manchester from 1975 to 1976, and was the prime motivator in the creation of the Royal Northern College of Music. She was made a Freeman of the City of Manchester and was an advisor on educational matters to Margaret Thatcher's government in the 1980s.
She published at least 26 mathematical papers, her most well known contribution being to most-perfect pandiagonal magic squares. An annual public lecture [1] at the School of Mathematics, University of Manchester is named in her honour.
Also a keen amateur astronomer, she donated her telescope to Lancaster University, and an observatory there bears her name. She is a member of the Manchester Astronomical society where she held the post of vice president for a number of years.
Dame Kathleen is one of the most eminent former pupils of St Leonards School in St Andrews, Fife and served as the school's president for many years in later life, recently being succeeded by Baroness Byford, Conservative spokeswoman in the House of Lords.
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies has dedicated her his Naxos Quartet No.9.[2]
Ollerenshaw was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1971. She has an Erdős number of at most five, but most of her papers are not co-authored.
[edit] References
- Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw, To Talk of Many Things: An Autobiography, Manchester Univ Press, 2004, ISBN 0-7190-6987-4
- Kathleen Ollerenshaw, Herman Bondi, Magic Squares of Order Four, Scholium Intl, 1983, ISBN 0-85403-201-0
- Kathleen Ollerenshaw, First citizen, Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1977, ISBN 0-246-10976-9
- K.M. Ollerenshaw K.M. D.S. Brée, Most-perfect pandiagonal magic squares. Mathematics Today, 1998, thirty four, 139-143. ISSN 1361-2042.
- D.S. Brée and K.M. Ollerenshaw, Pandiagonal magic-squares from mixed auxiliary squares. Mathematics Today, 1998, thirty four, 105-118. ISSN 1361-2042.
[edit] External links
- O'Connor, John J. & Robertson, Edmund F., “Kathleen Ollerenshaw”, MacTutor History of Mathematics archive
- *Kathleen Ollerenshaw at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- Interview on BBC Radio 4
- Manchester Politicians, with biographical sketch
- The Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw Observatory at Lancaster University
- The Manchester Astronomical Society
