Alister Watson

Alister George Douglas Watson (2 May 1908 – 16 October 1982) was a mathematician who was identified by several writers as a key member of the Cambridge spy ring.

Early years Born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England, Watson attended Winchester School and studied mathematics at King's College, Cambridge. He was elected a fellow in 1933 and published two papers during his fellowship, "Mathematics and its foundations" (Mind, volume 47 (1938), pp. 440– 451) and "Principal directions in a gravitational field" (Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society (Series 2) 6.01 (1939): 12-16).

Watson joined the Communist Party of Great Britain whilst at Cambridge and also became a member and later secretary of the Cambridge Apostles. In the summer of 1937, he introduced Ludwig Wittgenstein to Alan Turing. He was also well acquainted with John Maynard Keynes and other leading figures of the Cambridge academic life of the time.

Watson and Frank P. Ramsey assisted the economist Piero Sraffa with the mathematics for his book Production of commodities by Means of Commodities.

Career Following Cambridge, Watson joined the British Admiralty as a civilian, working at the Admiralty Signal and Radar Establishment and eventually rose to become head of the Submarine Detection Research Section of the Admiralty Research Laboratory (ARL). where he worked until retirement. Watson's publications while working there included "Air-sea interaction" (Science Progress Vol. 56, No. 223 (July 1968), pp. 303–323).

Family

Alister Watson was married twice. He had one daughter by his first marriage and a daughter and a son by his second.

He died in Haslemere, Surrey.