Early Life
Douglas Hartree was born in Cambridge, England. His father, William, was a lecturer in engineering at Cambridge University and his mother, Eva Rayner, was president of the National Council of Women and mayor of the city of Cambridge. One of his great-grandfathers was Samuel Smiles; another was the marine engineer William Hartree, partner of John Penn. He was the oldest of three sons, although his two younger brothers did not survive to adulthood. He attended St John's College, Cambridge but the first world war interrupted his studies. He joined a group working on anti-aircraft ballistics under A. V. Hill, where he gained considerable skill and an abiding interest in practical calculation and numerical methods for differential equations, executing most of his own work with pencil and paper. After the end of World War I, Hartree returned to Cambridge graduating in 1922 with a Second Class degree in natural sciences.
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