Catalogue description Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Douglas Rayner Hartree, 1897-1958, mathematician

Items 1-12 consist of manuscript notes and drafts, many heavily revised, for books projected but not completed by Hartree as single author or in collaboration. Lady Jeffreys (née Bertha Swirles, Hartree's collaborator on his proposed book on Mechanics (Items 1-10)) retains some duplicated lecture-notes of his courses, and some calculations made by his father, William Hartree, on an early, hand-operated Brunsviga.

Items 15 and 16 were received from Professor Wilkes, whose explanatory notes accompany both files. Item 15 consists of Hartree's notes for a course of lectures on Partial Differential Equations to be given in the University of Cambridge; Item 16 is notes taken by him of lectures given by A.M. Turing 1946-47. Fuller information on both these files is given in the handlist below.

Item 17 consists of Xerox copies of letters, or notes of letters, written by Hartree to E.V. Appleton; they were received from Mrs. Hartree via Professor C. Stewart Gillmor.

Some of Hartree's early calculating machines are held in the Science Museum, South Kensington, London.

All the items in the handlist are manuscript unless otherwise stated. Titles and descriptions in inverted commas are those which appear on the documents.

Compiled by Jeannine Alton and Harriot Weiskittel

Hartree, Douglas Rayner, 1897-1958, scientist and mathematician

The manuscripts were received from Mrs. Elaine Hartree (widow), and from Professor M.V. Wilkes (Items 15 and 16).

b.1897 Cambridge.

1910-15 educated Bedales School.

1915 St. John's College, Cambridge (Scholar).

1915-19 Work with A.V. Hill, Anti-Aircraft Experimental Section, Munitions Inventions Department.

1918-22 Mathematical Tripos Pt.I, Natural Sciences Tripos (Physics), Pt.II.

1923 married Elaine Charlton.

1924-27 Fellow, St. John's College, Cambridge.

1926 Ph.D., Cambridge.

1928-29 Fellow, Christ's College, Cambridge.

1929-37 Beyer Professor of Applied Mathematics, University of Manchester.

1932 Fellow of the Royal Society.

1937-46 Professor of Theoretical Physics, University of Manchester.

1939-45 Work on scientific staff, Ministry of Supply.

1946-58 Plummer Professor of Mathematical Physics, University of Cambridge; Fellow of Christ's College

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