The Fielden Chair of Pure Mathematics is an endowed professorial position in the School of Mathematics, University of Manchester, England.
In 1870 Samuel Fielden, a wealthy mill owner from Todmorden, donated £150 to Owens College (as the Victoria University of Manchester was then called) for the teaching of evening classes and a further £3000 for the development of natural sciences at the college. From 1877 this supported the Fielden Lecturer, subsequently to become the Fielden Reader with the appointment of L. J. Mordell in 1922 and then Fielden Professor in 1923. Alex Wilkie FRS was appointed to the post in 2007. Previous holders of the Fielden Chair (and lectureship) are:
- A. T. Bentley (1876–1880) Lecturer in Pure Mathematics
- J. E. A. Steggall (1880–1883) Lecturer in Pure Mathematics
- R. F. Gwyther (1883–1907) Lecturer in Mathematics
- F. T. Swanwick (1907–1912) Lecturer in Mathematics
- H. R. Hasse (1912–1918) Lecturer in Mathematics
- George Henry Livens (1920–1922) Lecturer in Mathematics
- Louis Mordell (1923–1945)
- Max Newman (1945–1964)
- Frank Adams (1964–1971)
- Ian G. Macdonald (1972–1976)
- Norman Blackburn (1978–1994)
- Mark Pollicott (1996–2004)
- Alex Wilkie (2007-)
The other endowed chairs in mathematics at the University of Manchester are the Beyer Chair of Applied Mathematics and the Richardson Chair of Applied Mathematics.
Famous quotes containing the words chair, pure and/or mathematics:
“Come leave the loathed stage,
And the more loathsome age,
Where pride and impudence in faction knit
Usurp the chair of wit:
Indicting and arraigning every day,
Something they call a play.
Let their fastidious, vain
Commission of the brain,
Run on and rage, sweat, censure, and condemn:
They were not made for thee, less thou for them.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
“To conceive the good, in fact, is not sufficient; it must be made to succeed among men. To accomplish this, less pure paths must be followed.”
—Ernest Renan (1823–1892)
“It is a monstrous thing to force a child to learn Latin or Greek or mathematics on the ground that they are an indispensable gymnastic for the mental powers. It would be monstrous even if it were true.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)