Dame Kathleen Mary Ollerenshaw, (''née'' Timpson; 1 October 1912 – 10 August 2014) was a British mathematician and politician who was Lord Mayor of Manchester from 1975 to 1976 and an advisor on educational matters to Margaret Thatcher's government in the 1980s.

Early life and education

She was born Kathleen Mary Timpson in Withington, Manchester, where she attended Lady Barn House School (1918–26). She was a grandchild of the founder of the Timpson shoe repair business, who had moved to Manchester from Kettering and established the business there by 1870. She became fascinated with mathematics, inspired by the Lady Barn headmistress, Miss Jenkin Jones. While at Lady Barn, she met her future husband, Robert Ollerenshaw. Ollerenshaw became completely deaf at age eight and was taught to lip read. She gravitated toward the study of

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

as it is not dependent on hearing. She was further inspired by a headmistress at Lady Barn House School who studied mathematics at Cambridge. As a young woman, she attended St Leonards School and Sixth Form College in St Andrews, Scotland where today the house of young male boarders is named after her. At the age of 19 she gained admittance to

Somerville College, Oxford Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ir ...

, to study mathematics. She completed her doctorate at Somerville in 1945 on "Critical Lattices" under the supervision of Theo Chaundy. She wrote five original research papers which were sufficient for her to earn her DPhil degree without the need of a formal written thesis. While an undergraduate, she became engaged to Robert Ollerenshaw, who became a distinguished military

surgeon In modern medicine, a surgeon is a medical professional who performs surgery. Although there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon usually is also a licensed physician or received the same medical training as ...

( Colonel R.G.W. Ollerenshaw, ERD, TD, BM, DMRD) and a pioneer of medical illustration. They married in September 1939 and had two children, Charles (1941–99) and Florence (1946–72). In 1942 she suffered a

miscarriage Miscarriage, also known in medical terms as a spontaneous abortion and pregnancy loss, is the death of an embryo or fetus before it is able to survive independently. Miscarriage before 6 weeks of gestation is defined by ESHRE as biochemical lo ...

and "cried nonstop for three days" as a result of stress when her husband was posted abroad for front-line war service.

Career

After the Second World War, the Ollerenshaws moved to Manchester, where Kathleen worked as a part-time lecturer in the mathematics department at Manchester University while raising her children and continued her work on lattices. In 1949, at the age of 37, she received her first effective hearing aid. Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw MAS 2007

Outside of academia, Ollerenshaw served as a Conservative Councillor for Rusholme for twenty-five years (1954–79), a member of the city council's finance committee (1968–71), a chairman of the education committee of the Association of Municipal Corporations (1967–71), Lord Mayor of Manchester (1975–76), High Sheriff of Greater Manchester from 1978 to 1979, and the prime motivator in the creation of the

Royal Northern College of Music The Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) is a conservatoire located in Manchester, England. It is one of four conservatoires associated with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. In addition to being a centre of music education ...

. She was made a Freeman of the City of Manchester and was an advisor on educational matters to Margaret Thatcher's government in the 1980s. She was President of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications from 1978 to 1979. She published at least 26 mathematical papers, her best-known contribution being to most-perfect pandiagonal magic squares. Upon her death, she left a legacy in trust to support distinguished research visitors and public engagement activities at the School of Mathematics, University of Manchester. An annual public lecture at the university is named in her honour. An amateur astronomer, Ollerenshaw donated her telescope to

Lancaster University Lancaster University (legally The University of Lancaster) is a public university, public research university in Lancaster, Lancashire, Lancaster, Lancashire, England. The university was established in 1964 by royal charter, as one of several pla ...

, and an

observatory An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysical, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. His ...

there bears her name. She was an honorary member of the Manchester Astronomical Society and held the post of vice-president for a number of years. Ollerenshaw attended St Leonards School in

St Andrews St Andrews ( la, S. Andrea(s); sco, Saunt Aundraes; gd, Cill Rìmhinn) is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's fou ...

, Fife, and served as the school's president from 1981 to 2003. She was succeeded by

Baroness Byford Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knig ...

, Conservative spokeswoman in the House of Lords. She

turned 100 A centenarian is a person who has reached the age of 100 years. Because life expectancies worldwide are below 100 years, the term is invariably associated with longevity. In 2012, the United Nations estimated that there were 316,600 living cente ...

in October 2012. She died in

Didsbury Didsbury is a suburban area of Manchester, England, on the north bank of the River Mersey, south of Manchester city centre. The population at the 2011 census was 26,788. Within the boundaries of the historic county of Lancashire, there are ...

on 10 August 2014, at the age of 101. Her husband and both their children had predeceased her.

Honours and legacy

* In 1970, Ollerenshaw was appointed

Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

for services to education. * Composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies dedicated his Naxos Quartet No.9 to her.

References

Bibliography

*Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw, ''To Talk of Many Things: an autobiography'', Manchester Univ Press, 2004, *Kathleen Ollerenshaw, David S. Brée: ''Most-perfect Pandiagonal Magic Squares: their construction and enumeration'', Southend-on-Sea: Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, 1998, 186 pages, *Kathleen Ollerenshaw, Herman Bondi, ''Magic Squares of Order Four'', Scholium Intl, 1983, *Kathleen Ollerenshaw, ''First Citizen'', Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1977, *K. M. Ollerenshaw; D. S. Brée, "Most-perfect pandiagonal magic squares", in: ''Mathematics Today'', 1998, vol. 34, pp. 139–143. . *D. S. Brée and K. M. Ollerenshaw, "Pandiagonal magic-squares from mixed auxiliary squares", in: ''Mathematics Today'', 1998, vol. 34, pp. 105–118. . *Kathleen Ollerenshaw. 194
The Critical Lattices of a Square Frame
''Journal of the London Mathematical Society'' 19:75 part 3, pp. 178–184
The Critical Lattices of a Square Frame

External links

* * *
Interview on BBC Radio 4The Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw Observatory at Lancaster UniversityThe Manchester Astronomical Society
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ollerenshaw, Kathleen 1912 births 2014 deaths Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire People educated at St Leonards School Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford Conservative Party (UK) councillors People from Withington Amateur astronomers 20th-century British astronomers 20th-century British mathematicians 21st-century British mathematicians Mathematics educators Recreational mathematicians British women mathematicians Women astronomers Deaf politicians Women mayors of places in England Lord Mayors of Manchester High Sheriffs of Greater Manchester British centenarians 20th-century British women scientists Deaf people from England Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford 20th-century women mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians Women centenarians Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society Women councillors in England