Tom’s mother died when he was 5. He and his elder brother were brought up by their disabled father: he had been wounded on the Western Front in the first world war.
From St John’s Junior School, Tom started at Blackpool Grammar School in September 1943. His progress up the school was distinguished, not only by uninterrupted academic success but by his appearance: He was tall for his age; a pale complexion, a mass of blond, almost white, hair over a high fore head. He had no interest in athletics or sport, but was nevertheless, physically powerful.
December 1945
Tom acquired a reputation throughout the school for being impervious to pain; something of a stoic. I cannot recall his ever wearing an overcoat – even in the most inclement weather. During assembly one morning, when we were in the fifth year (1947 – 1948) he was in his usual place at the side towards the back of the assembly hall, leaning against a glass partition. Several of us heard a crack; and we learned later that a splinter of glass had gone through both his jacket and his shirt. A fragment had snapped off, and had lodged in his back. Tom didn’t utter a sound!… He remained steadfastly in his position until the end of assembly – and only then did he report to the duty master, who told him, “Get yourself up to Victoria Hospital ” – about a mile and a half and mostly uphill from the old B G S. He found his own way there and to the Casualty Department.
October 1949
On the last day of the summer term 1950 he and I sabotaged the assembly hall bell by inverting the clapper. Whilst we were doing so Tom cut his hand but was oblivious to his injury until we noticed blood dripping onto the floor.
Tom never rushed his words. Every reply to a question from friends and teachers alike, was measured, deliberate, and carefully considered.
Often he could be seen with a couple of mathematics books under his arm striding purposefully between his home, near North Station, and the Queens Street Public Library.
In 1951 after 3 years in the sixth form (History, French, Latin) Tom won a State scholarship to Bristol University. In 1954 he was awarded a B A Hons. (first Class) in French and Latin.
But his “devouring interest” (his words) was mathematics.
His two years’ National Service (1954-56) were spent as a Trooper in the Fifth Tanks stationed at Barce in Libya.
From 1956 to1959 he was at St Catharine’s, Cambridge University, where he gained a PhD for a thesis in the History of Mathematics.
In 1969 Tom was Woodward Visiting Professor at Yale University, Connecticut. Afterwards during 1970 to 1975 he went to Churchill College, Cambridge to be its first Senior Research Fellow.
In 1975 he was elected Fellow – at that time the youngest – of The British Academy, and in 1987 he was appointed Cambridge University Professor of History of Mathematics and Exact Sciences.
A Senior Member of Trinity College, Cambridge he has had the unique honour of twice being elected a College Fellow there.
In 1962 he married Ruth Robinson (a former Collegiate student), who died in 1997. Their son, Simon, and daughter, Philippa, are both graduates of Trinity.
Tom’s entry in Who’s Who reads:
“Whiteside Prof. Derek Thomas, PhD Cantab 1959; FBA 1975; University Professor of History of Mathematics and Exact Sciences, Cambridge, 1987- 99, now Emeritus .….
Cambridge University, 1956 ---
Leverhulme Research Fellow, 1959 – 61
DSIR Research Fellow, 1961- 63
Research Assistant, 1963 – 72
Assistant Director of Research, 1972 – 76
University Reader in History of Mathematics, 1976 – 87
Honours:
D Litt. Lancaster,1987 [Praising the rise to fame of “the local slum boy”.] Médaille Koyré, Académie Internat. d’Histoire des Sciences,1968 [The first of only five times this medal of highest international esteem has been awarded.]
Sarton Medal, American History of Science Society, 1977.
[The presenting of this highest award of The American History of Science
Society to Tom in the 250th anniversary of Newton’s death acknowledged
his pre-eminence among the world’s Newton scholars.}
Festschrift:: The Investigation of Difficult Things, 1992
[This virtually unprecedented gathering under the Cambridge Press imprint
of a collection of essays in Tom’s honour speaks for itself. The volume
includes a full list of his writings up to 1991.]
Publications:
Patterns of Mathematical Thought in the Later Seventeenth Century, 1961. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, 8 vols 1967-81.
The Preliminary Manuscripts for Isaac Newton’s 1687 Principia: 1684 – 1685 (in facsimile), (ed) 1989.
Articles in: Brit. Jl. Hist. of Science; Jl. Hist of Astronomy, Physis, etc;
The University of Cambridge website currently has under the Staff List of the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics: Prof. D T Whiteside, FBA .Title: Emeritus Professor.
Tom told me recently that his most rewarding intellectual recognition is that “ My edition of Newton’s Mathematics is now universally called ‘ Whiteside’s Papers’ “
In retirement, even as far away as Cambridge, his interest has now passed very much into studying local Fylde history, particularly that of the growth of secondary education. Last year he wrote a monograph on the early history of the Raikes Parade Secondary School, which of course became BGS in 1933.
But Tom will best be remembered by BGS Old Boys without technical interest for what he did in organising, with John Bamber, the reunion at the Fernlea Hotel, St Annes, in 1998 of members of 5 alpha (and others) of Blackpool Grammar School who had sat the School Certificate Examination fifty years before….with a repeat at the Stakis Hotel, Blackpool, a year later.
Stakis Hotel, Blackpool 1999
Nick Oakden -1943 starter
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