TURNBULL, HERBERT WESTREN

born Aug. 31, 1885, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton, Eng. died May 4, 1961, Grasmere, Westmoreland English mathematician who made extensive and notable contributions to the study of algebraic invariants and concomitants of quadratics. After serving as lecturer at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge (1909), the University of Liverpool (1910), and the University of Hong Kong (1912), Turnbull became master at St. Stephen's College in Hong Kong (191115), and warden of the University Hostel (191315). He was a fellow at St. John's College, Oxford (191926), and from 1921 held a chair of mathematics at United College of St. Salvator and St. Leonard, St. Andrews. Turnbull became an outstanding contributor to the symbolic calculus of German mathematicians Rudolf Clebsch and Paul Gordan. His major works include The Theory of Determinants, Matrices, and Invariants (1928), The Great Mathematicians (1929), Theory of Equations (1939), The Mathematical Discoveries of Newton (1945), and An Introduction to the Theory of Canonical Matrices (1945), which was cowritten with A.C. Aitken.