Bill Ferrar

Dr William Leonard Ferrar FRSE (21 October 1893 – 22 January 1990) was an English mathematician. He focused on interpolation theory and number theory.

Early life Ferrar was born on 21 October 1893 in St Pauls, Bristol, the son of Maria Susannah Ferrar and her husband George William Persons Ferrar, a lamplighter.

He attended Bristol Grammar School. In 1912, he gained a place at The Queen's College in Oxford, winning the Junior Mathematical Scholarship in 1914. His studies were interrupted by the First World War during which he first spent as a telephonist in the artillery then as an intelligence officer in France.

He returned to Oxford in 1919 and graduated MA in 1920, and later received a doctorate (DSc). and wrote papers on convergent series, interpolation theory, and number theory.

In 1925, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Edmund Whittaker, Edward Copson, Sir Charles Galton Darwin and David Gibb.

In the autumn of 1925, he took up a new role at the University of Oxford.

From its creation until 1933, he was the editor at the university of the Quarterly Journal of Mathematics in which he published many papers. In 1937, he became the bursar of Hertford College, Oxford which he was employed at for 22 years. After being the bursar in 1959, he became the Principal of the college.

Family

He was married to Edna Ferrar (1898–1986). Their son was Michael Ferrar.

Death He died in Oxford on 22 January 1990. He is buried in Wolvercote Cemetery.