Thomas Barker

Thomas Barker (9 September 1838 – 20 November 1907) was a Scottish mathematician, professor of pure mathematics at Owens College.

Life Born 9 September 1838, he was son of Thomas Barker, farmer, of Murcar, Balgonie, near Aberdeen, and of his wife Margaret. Three other children died in infancy. He was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School, and at King's College in the same town, where he graduated in 1857 with distinction in mathematics.

Barker entered Trinity College, Cambridge as minor scholar and subsizar in 1858. He became foundation scholar in 1860, Sheepshanks astronomical exhibitioner in 1861, and came out in the Mathematical Tripos of 1862 as senior wrangler; he was also first Smith's prizeman. He was elected to a fellowship in the autumn of 1862, and was assistant tutor of Trinity till 1865, when he was appointed professor of pure mathematics in Owens College, Manchester. He held this post for twenty years. John Hopkinson, John Henry Poynting, Arthur Schuster, and Joseph John Thomson.

Legacy By his will Barker provided for the foundation in the University of Manchester of a professorship of cryptogamic botany, and for the endowment of bursaries in mathematics and botany.