Mary Cartwright

Dame Mary Lucy Cartwright DBE FRSE FRS (17 December 1900 – 3 April 1998) was a British mathematician. With J. E. Littlewood she was the first to analyze a dynamical system with chaos.

Early life and education

Cartwright was born in Aynho, Northamptonshire, where her father, William Digby Cartwright, was vicar. Through her grandmother Jane Holbech she was descended from the poet John Donne and William Mompesson, the Vicar of Eyam.

Early education was at Leamington High School (1912-1915) then Gravely Manor School in Boscombe (1915-1916) before completion in Godolphin School in Salisbury (1916-1919).

She studied mathematics at St Hugh's College, Oxford, graduating in 1923 with a first class degree. She was the first woman to attain the final degree lectures and to obtain a first.

She then taught at Alice Ottley School in Worcester and Wycombe Abbey School in Buckinghamshire before returning to Oxford in 1928 to read for her D.Phil.

She was supervised by G. H. Hardy in her doctoral studies. During the academic year 1928–9 Hardy was at Princeton, so it was E. C. Titchmarsh who took over the duties as a supervisor. Her thesis on zeroes of entire functions was examined by J. E. Littlewood whom she met for the first time as an external examiner in her oral examination for the D.Phil. She would later establish an enduring collaboration with Littlewood.