Abstract
IN William Esson, Savilian professor of geometry since 1897, Oxford loses one who has done much for it. A Scot whose family came South in his boyhood, there was the air of a viking about him, and few who looked upon his magnificent beard during most of the sixty-one years of his university life were not conscious of a radiation of vigour as from the North. Born at Dundee in 1838, he was educated first at Inverness, and then at Cheltenham Grammar School. In 1855 he became Bible clerk of St. John's College, Oxford. Here he obtained two second classes (1856, 1858) in classics, and in mathematics carried all before him, gaining first classes in 1856 and 1859, and the junior and serior mathematical scholarships in 1857 and 1860. In 1860 he became Fellow of Merton and mathematical tutor. He was also tutor or lecturer for various periods at Magdalen, Corpus, Worcester, and Hertford. Enormous as have been his services to Merton and to the university as financier and man of business, and real as have been his achievements in geometrical and mathematico-chemical investigation, the writer and others put first his leadership in college mathematical teaching. In the 'sixties and 'seventies there were two classes of mathematical students in Oxford-those who blessed the Providence which had put them under him, and those who envied the others.
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Prof. W. Esson, F.R.S. . Nature 97, 547 (1916). https://doi.org/10.1038/097547a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/097547a0