Senior Wrangler (University of Cambridge)

Senior Wrangler (University Of Cambridge)

The Senior Wrangler is the top mathematics undergraduate at Cambridge University in England, a position once regarded as "the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain."

Specifically, it is the person who achieves the highest overall mark among the Wranglers – the students at Cambridge who gain first-class degrees in mathematics. The Cambridge undergraduate mathematics course, or Mathematical Tripos, is famously difficult.

Many Senior Wranglers have become world-leading figures in mathematics, physics, and other fields. They include George Airy, John Herschel, Arthur Cayley, James Inman, George Stokes, Isaac Todhunter, Morris Pell, Lord Rayleigh, Arthur Eddington, J. E. Littlewood, Frank Ramsey, Donald Coxeter, Jacob Bronowski and Ben Green.

Senior Wranglers were once fêted with torchlit processions and took pride of place in the University's graduation ceremony. Years in Cambridge were often remembered in terms of who had been Senior Wrangler that year.

The annual ceremony in which the Senior Wrangler becomes known was first held in the 18th century. Standing on the balcony of the University's Senate House, the examiner reads out the class results for mathematics, and printed copies of the results are then thrown to the audience below. He no longer announces the students' exact rankings, but he still identifies the Senior Wrangler, nowadays by tipping his academic hat when he reads out the person's name.