No . 136
The Trusty Servant
Winchester ’ s Quinquennium Mirabile
This year , Professor Sir Bryan Thwaites ( C , 41-42 ; Co Ro , 51-59 ) celebrates his centenary , which has led him to muse on an extraordinary concatenation of Wykehamist mathematicians – including himself .
As far as I know , there is no account in the school ’ s archive of the remarkable five years 1936-41 when Winchester had no fewer than six boys of exceptional mathematical talent , all of whom went on to distinguished careers in academia . I hope that this brief article will explain to the Wykehamical community how those years could indeed be described as a quinquennium mirabile for scholarship at Win : Coll .
The boys were Christopher Longuet-Higgins ( Coll , 35-41 ) - 35 , Freeman Dyson ( Coll , 36-41 ) - 28 , James Lighthill ( Coll , 36-41 ) - 29 , Oliver Atkin ( Coll , 38 - 42 ), Bryan Thwaites ( C , 41 1 - 42 2 ) and Michael Longuet-Higgins ( Coll , 39 - 43 ) - 38 . The numbers after four of them are the ( very young ) ages at which they were elected Fellows of the Royal Society . All were Collegemen bar one , namely myself – which needs some immediate explanation .
The tale starts in the summer of 1936 when Freeman and James sat Winchester ’ s Election examination with the former coming top , and I sat the Open Scholarship examination at Dulwich , also coming top . It was that success of mine which must have persuaded Canon Spencer Leeson , the then Headmaster , that I , as an evacuee from the Blitz on London , was sufficiently well qualified to be taken in by WinColl . And his choice
Thwaites in Cook ’ s 1942 house photo
of Cook ’ s , under Murray Hicks , was inspirational , in that I was warmly welcomed in the House where I made three life-long friends .
Mathematically , however , I at once found that both Freeman and James were out of sight . From about the age of fifteen they had been corresponding with the top mathematicians at Trinity , Cambridge such as A . S . Besicovich , J . E . Littlewood and G . H . Hardy ( Coll , 89 – 96 ). So they went up to Cambridge already well up to the standard of Part III of the Maths Tripos which they took with stars in 1941 . Immediate Research Fellowships would normally have followed - but times were not normal .
With warfare now being increasingly controlled by scientific analysis , there were major establishments around the country such as the Royal Aircraft
Establishment at Farnborough , the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment at Fort Halstead in Kent , the Radar Research Establishment at Malvern , and Bletchley Park ; and they had to be fed by a constant stream of young scientists . Schools and universities were required to send to the Ministry of Supply the names of likely recruits and it was only decades later that it became generally known that it was the Cambridge don and author C . P . Snow who almost single-handedly chose and allocated such young men and women according to their abilities .
For example , I was called for interview in May 1942 and the conversation ran as follows : “ Good afternoon , Thwaites - in September you will go up to do the Maths Tripos in 2 years and then go to the NPL .” “ Oh Sir , I ’ m terribly sorry , I can ’ t do that - I have been accepted for the Guards Armoured Division .” “ Well , Thwaites , that ’ s bad luck . Goodbye .” At that very moment my future career was determined .
Similarly , Freeman was sent to Bomber Command to work on the optimisation of the effect of mass bombing ; James went to the NPL charged with establishing the theory of supersonic flow ; Christopher was sent to Balliol , Oxford , to work in the field of Chemistry ; Michael went to the Admiralty Research Laboratory at the NPL to work on water waves and their effect on landing craft ; and Oliver went to Bletchley Park .
Soon , however , their National Service had been completed and they were free to resume their own careers . Thus Christopher made major
8