Isaac Todhunter


Isaac Todhunter FRS, was an English mathematician who is best known today for the books he wrote on mathematics and its history.

Life and work

The son of George Todhunter, a Nonconformist minister, and Mary, he was born at Rye, Sussex. He was educated at Hastings, where his mother had opened a school after the death of his father in 1826. He was at first at a school run by Robert Carr, moving then to one opened by John Baptist Austin.
Todhunter became an assistant master at a school at Peckham, attending at the same time evening classes at the University College, London where he was influenced by Augustus De Morgan. In 1842 he obtained a mathematical scholarship and graduated as B.A. at London University, where he was awarded the gold medal on the M.A. examination. About this time he became mathematical master at a school at Wimbledon.
In 1844 Todhunter entered St John's College, Cambridge, where he was senior wrangler in 1848, and gained the first Smith's Prize and the Burney Prize; and in 1849 he was elected to a fellowship, and began his life of college lecturer and private tutor. In 1862 he was made a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1865 a member of the London Mathematical Society. In 1871 he gained the Adams Prize and was elected to the council of the Royal Society. He was elected honorary fellow of St John's in 1874, having resigned his fellowship on his marriage in 1864. In 1880 his eyesight began to fail, and shortly afterwards he was attacked with paralysis.
He is buried in the Mill Road cemetery, Cambridge.

Personal life

Todhunter married 13 August 1864 Louisa Anna Maria, eldest daughter of Captain George Davies, R.N.. He died on 1 March 1884, at his residence, 6 Brookside, Cambridge. A mural tablet and medallion portrait were placed in the ante-chapel of his college by his widow, who, with four sons and one daughter, survived him.
He was a sound Latin and Greek scholar, familiar with French, German, Spanish, Italian, and also Russian, Hebrew, and Sanskrit. He was well versed in the history of philosophy, and on three occasions acted as examiner for the moral sciences tripos.

Selected writings

Todhunter wrote textbooks on algebra and trigonometry, and a revision of the translation by Robert Simson of Euclid's Elements, which, with an introduction by Thomas Little Heath, was republished by Everyman in 1933.
Todhunter's major historical works include a history of the Probability theory from the time of Blaise Pascal to that of Pierre-Simon Laplace first published in 1865.