The Victorians saw great changes in science, and particularly so in theories of light, electricity and magnetism, together with their concomitant, the aether; and it was through researches into the theoretical and mathematical treatment of these phenomena that some of the finest mathematicians of the age, such as Maxwell, Clifford, Stokes, Thomson, Rayleigh and Airy, acquired prominence in the public mind. They were drawn from those who emerged from the Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge as senior or second wranglers, made some of the most important advances in nineteenth-century physics, and had international reputations; but they became national figures not through mathematics as such, but because the subjects that they researched, and the developments that followed, were relevant to public interests and concerns: utility, contributing to the prosperity of Empire, and increasing our knowledge of the workings of the world. This was an unhelpful backdrop for pure mathematicians, whose work was not accessible to the public, and who were struggling to gain recognition and status; clearly, they could not compete with applied mathematicians when it came to obtaining public recognition.