Important changes are taking place at Westfield College. A new Science Faculty is being created and—although the College is, indeed, no stranger to scientific activity—the scope of the future effort in this field will be on a much larger scale than at any time in the past. I speak to you today as one of the five new professors who have recently joined the College as a result of the expansion; but my position as professor of Mathematics is not quite the same as that of the other four science professors. I am, in a sense, not such a novelty—and this perhaps is why I have been asked to be the first to give my Inaugural Lecture—since my department already exists. In fact mathematics has been taught at the College continuously from its earliest days in the 1880’s, and I should like to begin by paying tribute to the devoted work of my predecessor, Miss G. K. Stanley. Originally a Westfield student, she received her postgraduate mathematical education in Oxford at the feet of the great Hardy, and returned to Westfield College in 1931 to take over the direction of the Mathematics Department from Miss Whitby, who had held office for the preceding 36 years. Not only has Miss Stanley guided the department with a sure hand during a period which has seen profound changes in the teaching of mathematics in London, but she has also given invaluable service direct to the University as secretary of the Board of Studies in Mathematics for the past 16 years. We are very glad indeed to know that she is still with us to give us the benefit of her knowledge and experience in the development that lies ahead.