Edmund Taylor Whittaker was born at Birkdale, Lancashire, on 24th October 1873 and belonged to a family which had been known for several generations in the district where the Rabble forms the boundary between Lancashire and Yorkshire. He entered Manchester Grammar School in 1885 and spent two years in the Classical side before turning over to the Mathematical side. In December 1891 he won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, and, after an undergraduate career of unusual distinction, was bracketed with J. H. Grace as Second Wrangler in the Tripos of 1895 ; Bromwich was Senior Wrangler. In 1896 Whittaker was elected a Fellow of Trinity College and in 1897 was first Smith's prizeman, his essay being entitled “On the reduction of the theory of multiform functions to uniform functions.”

It is a singular honour to be invited to deliver a lecture commemorating the work of Sir Edmund Whittaker, especially before the Edinburgh Mathematical Society, whose development owes so much to his initiative and co-operation. But when I reflect on the difficulties of the task I can only exclaim in the words of St Jerome's preface to his translation of the New Testament, “Pius labor, sed periculosa praesumptio”.

Although only three of Whittaker's papers (12, 13, 14) are on the theory of automorphic functions, he retained his interest in it throughout his life. His son, Dr J. M. Whittaker, informs me that his last mathematical conversation with his father was on this subject. The standard English work on automorphic functions by L. R. Ford (4), and its precursor in the Edinburgh Mathematical Tracts series, owe much to Whittaker, and it was he who suggested the term “isometric circle” of which Ford makes such elegant use in his development of the theory. Professor G. N. Watson informs me that Whittaker had expressed his willingness to contributea a chapter on automorphic functions to the revised and expanded edition of Modern Analysis which is in preparation.

Whittaker's contributions to algebra are not numerous and are confined to special problems ; in one or two cases they are rediscoveries, of the kind that add a certain illumination to the original. His outlook on algebra was that of his time ; one might characterise it by referring to the spirit and content of Perron's Algebra, as contrasted with the Moderne Algebra of van der Waerden. Bred in the Cayley-Sylvester tradition of matrix algebra and the invariant theory of forms, he was expert also in the manipulation of continued fractions and determinants. His lectures to honours classes in Edinburgh always included a course on matrices, vector analysis and invariants, historical reference being made to Grassmann, Cayley and Sylvester; it is to such a course that the writer owes his first acquaintance with matrix algebra. In later years, from about 1925, Whittaker acquired an adequate knowledge, though never a marked taste, for those parts of modern abstract algebra, in particular the representation of groups and algebras, that serve a purpose in mathematical physics; his courses of research lectures, which he kept up until a late period in his tenure of the chair, bore witness of this.

Ten papers deal with the theory of relativity, and all are concerned in some way with electromagnetism. Those who know Whittaker through his Modern Analysis and Analytical Dynamics will recognise in these papers the same mastery over complicated situations which enabled him to disdain the support of notational refinements, that same elegance, brevity and persuasive charm which make difficult arguments seem easier than they really are. The new element which emerges is the strongly geometrical approach; but he remains true to the Lagrange tradition and draws no diagrams of space-time, although these must surely have been before his mind's eye and would have helped his readers.

Whittaker's studies of the relations between physics and philosophy are contained in about forty books and papers, nearly all of which were published during the last fifteen years of his life. His approach is mainly historical and is a natural sequence to his History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity. Many of the publications were based on lectures delivered to various groups and there is naturally a certain amount of repetition.

A special meeting of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society was held in the Mathematical Institute, Edinburgh, on Friday, 17th May 1957, to commemorate Sir Edmund Whittaker's work. Present at this meeting were Sir Edmund's widow, Lady Whittaker, and members of her family.

Dr J. M. Whittaker, F.E.S., on behalf of Lady Whittaker and family, asked the Society to accept the sum of £500 to be used to provide a prize which would be awarded for meritorious work in mathematics by young mathematicians in Scotland.