Robert Francis Churchhouse

CBE 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 ...

KSG, also known as Bob Churchhouse (30 December 1927 – 27 August 2018) was Professor of Computing Mathematics at

Cardiff University , latin_name = , image_name = Shield of the University of Cardiff.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms of Cardiff University , motto = cy, Gwirionedd, Undod a Chytgord , mottoeng = Truth, Unity and Concord , established = 1 ...

and President of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.

Early life and education

Churchhouse was born on 30 December 1927 in Higher Blackley, Manchester. The son of Robert Francis, a laboratory assistant, and Agnes Churchhouse (''née Howard''), a cotton mill worker. Churchhouse grew up into a Roman Catholic family. He attended St Clare's RC Primary School, and then

St Bede's College, Manchester ("He never relaxed in idleness") , established = 1876 , closed = , type = Independent day school Public School , religious_affiliation = Roman Catholic , president = , head_label = Headteacher , head ...

from 1939 to 1946. He pursued an undergraduate education in mathematics at Manchester University, where he was taught by both Max Newman and

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical com ...

, both now famous for their code breaking work at

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...

WW2 World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Churchhouse graduated with a first class honours degree and subsequently received an award to undertake a PhD in

Number Theory Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic function, integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777� ...

Trinity Hall, Cambridge Trinity Hall (formally The College or Hall of the Holy Trinity in the University of Cambridge) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is the fifth-oldest surviving college of the university, having been founded in 1350 by ...

under the supervision of Professor

Louis J. Mordell Louis Joel Mordell (28 January 1888 – 12 March 1972) was an American-born British mathematician, known for pioneering research in number theory. He was born in Philadelphia, United States, in a Jewish family of Lithuanian extraction. Educatio ...

. His time at Cambridge brought him into contact with other ex-Bletchley mathematicians.

Career

In 1952, for his national service, Churchhouse joined the ''Royal Navy Scientific Service'', and then the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) where he worked for 11 years in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

Cheltenham Cheltenham (), also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a spa town and borough on the edge of the Cotswolds in the county of Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort, following the discovery of mineral s ...

, and at the UK's embassy in Washington. The ''GCHQ'' was interested in his work in number theory, and he was initially interviewed in May 1952. During his time at the GCHQ, he worked with Hugh Alexander and Jack Good both of whom had also worked at Bletchley Park on the breaking of the Enigma code. In 1962, he was appointed head of programming at the

Atlas Computer Laboratory The Atlas Computer Laboratory on the Harwell, Oxfordshire campus shared by the Harwell Laboratory was one of the major computer laboratories in the world, which operated between 1961 and 1975 to provide a service to British scientists at a tim ...

Harwell Harwell may refer to: People * Harwell (surname) * Harwell Hamilton Harris (1903–1990), American architect Places * Harwell, Nottinghamshire, England, a hamlet *Harwell, Oxfordshire, England, a village **RAF Harwell, a World War II RAF airfield, ...

where he worked on the Atlas I supercomputer until 1971. Churchhouse left Atlas in 1971 and joined

as an Inaugural Professor and head of the newly created Department of Computing Mathematics. He was also the Director of the Cardiff University Computer Centre for the early part of his tenure. In 1965, Bob was asked to serve on the Flowers Committee responsible for the provision of computers to Universities and Research Councils and was subsequently asked to serve on the follow-up Computer Board. He chaired the Computer Board from 1979 to 1982 and was subsequently awarded a

for his services. As a lifelong Catholic, he helped reorganise the Catholic Secondary Schools in Cardiff as well as serving on the Board of Governors of Saint David's Sixth Form College for 15 years. He was recognized for his service with an Papal Knighthood (KSG) in 1988.

Bibliography

Books

* *

Selected publications

* *Churchhouse, R.F. Zanella, P. (Ed.). (1991). "Parallelism, fractal geometry and other aspects of computational mathematics". ''Singapore: World Scientific.'' * * * * *

Personal life

Churchhouse married Julia McCarthey. They had three sons. Churchhouse died of heart failure on 27 August 2018 at the age of 90.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Churchhouse, Robert 1927 births 2018 deaths Commanders of the Order of the British Empire English mathematicians Academics of Cardiff University Bletchley Park people People educated at St Bede's College, Manchester Scientists from Manchester