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Ida Busbridge
Times obituary
Mathematics for Women at Oxford
Dr. Ida Winifred Busbridge, one of the pioneers of teaching mathematics to women undergraduates at Oxford University, died on December 27, aged 80.
She devoted herself to teaching and lecturing on the subject from 1939, when numbers were small and she was in sole charge of the subject in all of the then exclusively women's colleges. By 1970, when she retired, the number of women reading mathematics had increased by some four hundred percent, and each college had, for some years, had its own maths tutor.
She was elected a Fellow of St. Hugh's College in 1946, and although, as numbers grew, she became exclusively responsible only for her own college, she never ceased to care for women mathematicians as a whole.
Ida Busbridge was a stimulating tutor with extremely high standards: she herself worked very hard and expected no less from her pupils.
She was President of the Mathematical Association for the year 1964-65. In her presidential address, she clarified that Britain "in order to survive" had to increase the number of its qualified mathematicians, but admitted existing training methods led to high failure levels.
"I think most universities pitch their first-year courses far too high. I am sure we have done so at Oxford," she admitted.
She was born in Woolwich and educated at Christ's Hospital School, being then awarded a scholarship in maths at Royal Holloway College. She gained First Class Honours and headed the maths degree list of London University for 1929.
She did mathematical research at University College, London, and in 1936 left for Oxford, taking full charge of the women maths students by 1939. She had been appointed Lecturer in Mathematics at St. Hugh's College the year before.
Although Ida Busbridge gave teaching first claim upon her time and energy, she kept up her own studies and research and published more than 20 original papers. She worked on the theory of Fourier integrals and related topics, and later applied this work to the problem of radiative transfer, in which subject she became one of the foremost experts in this country.
Mathematics for Women at Oxford
Dr. Ida Winifred Busbridge, one of the pioneers of teaching mathematics to women undergraduates at Oxford University, died on December 27, aged 80.
She devoted herself to teaching and lecturing on the subject from 1939, when numbers were small and she was in sole charge of the subject in all of the then exclusively women's colleges. By 1970, when she retired, the number of women reading mathematics had increased by some four hundred percent, and each college had, for some years, had its own maths tutor.
She was elected a Fellow of St. Hugh's College in 1946, and although, as numbers grew, she became exclusively responsible only for her own college, she never ceased to care for women mathematicians as a whole.
Ida Busbridge was a stimulating tutor with extremely high standards: she herself worked very hard and expected no less from her pupils.
She was President of the Mathematical Association for the year 1964-65. In her presidential address, she clarified that Britain "in order to survive" had to increase the number of its qualified mathematicians, but admitted existing training methods led to high failure levels.
"I think most universities pitch their first-year courses far too high. I am sure we have done so at Oxford," she admitted.
She was born in Woolwich and educated at Christ's Hospital School, being then awarded a scholarship in maths at Royal Holloway College. She gained First Class Honours and headed the maths degree list of London University for 1929.
She did mathematical research at University College, London, and in 1936 left for Oxford, taking full charge of the women maths students by 1939. She had been appointed Lecturer in Mathematics at St. Hugh's College the year before.
Although Ida Busbridge gave teaching first claim upon her time and energy, she kept up her own studies and research and published more than 20 original papers. She worked on the theory of Fourier integrals and related topics, and later applied this work to the problem of radiative transfer, in which subject she became one of the foremost experts in this country.
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