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Thomas Little Heath
Born: 5 Oct 1861 in Barnetby le Wold, Lincoln, England
Died: 16 March 1940 in Ashtead, Surrey, England

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Thomas Heath's parents were Mary Little, from Hibaldstowe, Lincolnshire,
and Samuel Heath who was a farmer from Thornton Cutris, Ulceby,
Lincolnshire. Mary and Samuel had six children, three sons and three
daughters. Thomas was the youngest of the three boys and he, like all
the children, was musical and academically gifted. Thomas Little Heath
was named after his grandfather on his mother's side, who was Thomas
Little. He received a love of the classics from his father who had
classics as his hobby.
After attending Caistor Grammar School and Clifton College, he went up
to Trinity College Cambridge in 1879 holding a foundation scholarship.
He was awarded a first class degree in both mathematics and classics. He
took Part I and Part II of the Classical Tripos in 1881 and 1883, being
twelfth wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos of 1882.
He took the Civil Service examination in 1884 and obtained the top mark.
He became a clerk in the Treasury and was quickly promoted. He was
private secretary to Sir Reginald Earle, later becoming permanent
secretary. Heath was then private secretary to various financial
secretaries at the Treasury up to 1907 when he was appointed Assistant
secretary to the Treasury. In 1913 he was appointed as permanent
secretary to the Treasury, taking control of the administrative side of
the Treasury. He left the Treasury in 1919 for the National Debt Office,
holding a post there until he retired in 1926. He was honoured for his
work in the Civil Service by being appointed C.B. in 1903, K.C.B. in
1909, and K.C.V.O. in 1916.
Heath was [2]:-
... an admirable example of the older type of Civil servant. His courage
and honesty were beyond question; his technique was perfect; but his
mind was not, perhaps, sufficiently pliable or fertile in ideas to adapt
itself readily to the conditions which between 1914 and 1918 had upset
every kind of preconceived ideas of the desk and paper man, such as he
really was.
However Heath had two separate careers, one as a civil servant, the
other as one of the leading world experts on the history of mathematics.
He was a specialist in the history of Greek mathematics, writing
articles on 'Pappus' and 'Porisms' for Encyclopaedia Britannica while
still an undergraduate. In his first year at the Treasury he wrote an
essay on Diophantus and this won him a Cambridge Fellowship. Cayley
recommended its publication by Cambridge University Press and Diophantus
of Alexandria: a study in the history of Greek algebra appeared in 1885.
In 1896 he published Apollonius of Perga which presented the important
text on conic sections using modern notation, and it contained an
important preface giving details of previous Greek work on conic
sections. Archimedes was published in 1897 but at this stage the
important work called The Method had not been discovered, so Heath added
a translation of this in an edition he brought out in 1912. In 1908
Heath's three volume work on Euclid appeared. The second edition of his
translation of Euclid, brought out in 1926, has since become the
standard English version of the text. Between these two editions, in
1920, he published his version of Book I of the Elements written in
Greek. This was intended to encourage schools to teach directly from
Book I, but it does make us realise how things have changed in British
schools today - how many of today's schoolchildren could use a book
written in Greek as their mathematics textbook!
Greek astronomical work also attracted Heath's attention and in 1913 he
published a translation of Aristarchus' On the sizes and distances of
the sun and moon again with an important preface, this time giving a
thorough account of Greek astronomy. Perhaps his most famous work,
however, is History of Greek Mathematics which appeared in 1921. It is a
two volume work, cleverly written by partly following a chronological
path, partly grouping subject areas together. A single volume version on
Greek mathematics, condensing the material from his earlier work,
appeared in 1931 under the title A manual of Greek mathematics and the
following year he produced a companion volume Greek astronomy.
Heath was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1912 and served for
two terms on its council. Following the publication of History of Greek
Mathematics he was elected president of the Mathematical Association for
1922-23. In 1932 he was elected a fellow of the British Academy.
One might think that having a career in the Civil Service and yet being
a leading historian of mathematics would leave Heath little time for
other hobbies but in fact this was not so. He was always interested in
music and he had married Ada Mary Thomas in 1914, who was a professional
musician, reinforcing his interest. Heath also spent time mountaineering
[2]:-
... and he made most of the principal ascents in the Dolomites.
He died at Merry Hall in Ashtead, Surrey.
Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson
Click on this link to see a list of the Glossary entries for this page
List of References (5 books/articles)
Some Quotations (2)
Mathematicians born in the same country
Cross-references to History Topics
Squaring the circle
Doubling the cube
Trisecting an angle
How do we know about Greek mathematicians?
How do we know about Greek mathematics?
The Golden ratio
Infinity
Honours awarded to Thomas Heath
(Click a link below for the full list of mathematicians honoured in this
way) Fellow of the Royal Society Elected 1912 Obituaries, etc.The Times
(Obituary)
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JOC/EFR October 2003 School of Mathematics and Statistics
University of St Andrews, Scotland The URL of this page is:
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Heath.html

[wheelerpaiting]
<< Thomas Little Heath
Born: 5 Oct 1861 in Barnetby le Wold, Lincoln, England
Died: 16 March 1940 in Ashtead, Surrey, England >>

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