Thomas Barker (1838–1907) was a Scottish mathematician, professor of pure mathematics at Owens College.
Life
Born 9 September 1838, he was son of Thomas Barker, farmer, of Murcar, Balgonie, near
Aberdeen
Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), ...
, and of his wife Margaret. Three other children died in infancy. He was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School, and at
King's College King's College or The King's College refers to two higher education institutions in the United Kingdom:
*King's College, Cambridge, a constituent of the University of Cambridge
*King's College London, a constituent of the University of London
It ca ...
in the same town, where he graduated in 1857 with distinction in mathematics.
Barker entered
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...
as minor scholar and subsizar in 1858. He became foundation scholar in 1860, Sheepshanks astronomical exhibitioner in 1861, and came out in the
Mathematical Tripos
The Mathematical Tripos is the mathematics course that is taught in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. It is the oldest Tripos examined at the University.
Origin
In its classical nineteenth-century form, the tripos was a ...
of 1862 as
senior wrangler
The Senior Frog Wrangler is the top mathematics undergraduate at the University of Cambridge in England, a position which has been described as "the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain."
Specifically, it is the person who ...
; he was also first Smith's prizeman. He was elected to a fellowship in the autumn of 1862, and was assistant tutor of Trinity till 1865, when he was appointed professor of pure mathematics in Owens College,
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...
. He held this post for twenty years.
Barker was a follower of Augustus De Morgan and
George Boole
George Boole (; 2 November 1815 – 8 December 1864) was a largely self-taught English mathematician, philosopher, and logician, most of whose short career was spent as the first professor of mathematics at Queen's College, Cork in ...
. He was interested in the logical basis rather than in the applications of mathematics, and was an austere teacher. He disliked publication.
After resigning his chair in 1885, Barker lived in retirement, first at
Whaley Bridge
Whaley Bridge () is a town and civil parish in the High Peak district of Derbyshire, England. It is situated on the River Goyt, south-east of Manchester, north of Buxton, north-east of Macclesfield and west of Sheffield. It had a population ...
and then at
Buxton
Buxton is a spa town in the High Peak, Derbyshire, Borough of High Peak, Derbyshire, England. It is England's highest market town, sited at some above sea level.cryptogamic botany. He died unmarried at Buxton on 20 November 1907, and was buried in Southern Cemetery, Manchester.
Pupils
Barker had a number of distinguished mathematicians and physicists as pupils: they included
John Walton Capstick
John Walton Capstick OBE (31 August 1858 – 27 April 1937) was a Bursar of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Early life
Capstick was born in Lancaster, Lancashire and educated at the Friends' School, Lancaster, and Owens College, Manchester. He took a ...
Arthur Schuster
Sir Franz Arthur Friedrich Schuster (12 September 1851 – 14 October 1934) was a German-born British physicist known for his work in spectroscopy, electrochemistry, optics, X-radiography and the application of harmonic analysis to physics. ...
, and
Joseph John Thomson
Sir Joseph John Thomson (18 December 1856 – 30 August 1940) was a British physicist and Nobel Laureate in Physics, credited with the discovery of the electron, the first subatomic particle to be discovered.
In 1897, Thomson showed that ...
.
Legacy
By his will Barker provided for the foundation in the University of Manchester of a professorship of cryptogamic botany, and for the endowment of bursaries in mathematics and botany.