No . 136 The Trusty Servant
Aeronautical Research Council of the Ministry of Supply . That , together with a string of other publications , led to my being invited to take , in 1959 , a newly-created Chair of Mathematics at Southampton University . My colleague dons were so flabbergasted that they forgot to congratulate me !
But I was sorry to leave the very happy environment of WinColl : in which so many people lived and worked at close quarters . Apart from the Housedons , all the dons lived in Kingsgate Street or College Street ; they were in and out through front doors which were never locked , which enabled boys to put their tasks on the hall tables . And the tradesmen in those two streets were all part of the show . Starting with Mr Tizzard the plumber in his yard opposite Quirister School , there were Miss Gard , the outfitter with her bespoke tailor ; Mr Crosby in the Sports shop ; Mr Bullpit the grocer ; the clock-maker sitting behind his large front window , now part of the Wykeham Arms ; Mrs Menniss the post-mistress ; Mr Laverty the woodworker with his large workshop the other side of Kings Gate ; Mr & Mrs Nicholas in School Shop , now the fancy Cornflowers ; and last , Miss Wells the book-seller with her bindery at the back and her niece Monica and Mr Spicer on the front desk .
So I moved to Southampton , and James moved at the same time to the Directorship of the RAE Farnborough , which in that era was a truly enormous establishment . After the RAE , he went to Imperial College in 1964 as a Royal Society Professor , while I , two years later , became Principal of Westfield College , London . But if I thought that , as a College Head , I had at last got one up on him , it didn ’ t last long , for in 1979 , after a stint in the Lucasian Chair at Cambridge , he became Provost of University College , London - checkmate !
College Officers 1941 : Christopher Longuet-Higgins and Freeman Dyson front left and right respectively
My tale could well end there – the tale of two very close friends , both knighted though with differing citations , whose careers started in the same room at the NPL and ended as Heads of two Colleges in the same University .
But it would not be complete without reference to our contrasting views on computers . As soon I was appointed to the Southampton chair , I began something of a crusade for the use of computers in schools and universities . As a result , when I became the second President of the newly-found Institute of Mathematics and its Applications , James having been the first , I took the opportunity to make a lengthy exposition of my views in my Presidential Address of 1967 . The title was “ 1984 - Mathematics⇔Computers ?” and it was a fully-researched effort with fifty-two references in the published version . As James and I strolled out of the auditorium together after the lecture , he turned to me and said , “ Bryan , you can ’ t believe any of that !” And in later conversations , he took exception to such of my prophecies as this one : “ Well within the next century , we shall be wearing computers of Atlas ’ s power on our wrists .” I was out by half-a-century !
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