Henri Fehr

Left to right, background: Julius Wolff, Raymond C. Archibald, foreground: , Henri Fehr, at the ICM 1932

Henri Fehr (Zurich, 2 February 1870 – Geneva, 2 November 1954) was a Swiss mathematician who was key to the foundation and organisation of national and international mathematical societies and journals. He studied mathematics in Switzerland and France, earning his doctorate at the University of Geneva in 1899 with a thesis on the application of Grassmann's vector methods to differential geometry. In 1910 he co-founded the Swiss Mathematical Society and established its flagship journals, Commentarii Mathematici Helvetici and, with Charles-Ange Laisant, L'Enseignement mathématique, sitting on their editorial and financial committees. Fehr spent his career at the University of Geneva—rising to dean and rector—and from the foundation of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction in 1908 until his death in 1954 he served as its general secretary; he also held the vice-presidency of the International Mathematical Union from 1924 to 1932.

Education and the Swiss Mathematical Society

Fehr studied mathematics in Switzerland and France, taking his doctorate at the University of Geneva in 1899 with a thesis entitled Application de la Méthode Vectorielle de Grassmann à la Géométrie Infinitésimale (Paris: Georges Carré & C. Naud, 1899; 94 pp.), in which he applied Grassmann's vectorial methods to problems of infinitesimal differential geometry. Toronto (1924), 2nd ed. 1907. with Théodore Flournoy and Édouard Claparède: