H. F. Baker

Who was H. F. Baker?

Henry Frederick Baker FRS was a British mathematician, working mainly in algebraic geometry, but also remembered for contributions to partial differential equations, and Lie groups.

He was born in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England. He was educated at The Perse School before winning a scholarship to St John's College, Cambridge in October 1884. Baker graduated as Senior Wrangler in 1887, bracketed with 3 others. He was elected Fellow of St John's in 1888 where he remained for 68 years.

In June, 1898 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1911, he gave the presidential address to the London Mathematical Society.

In January 1914 he was appointed Lowndean Professor of Astronomy.

Gordon Welchman recalled that in the 1930s before the war Dennis Babbage and himself were members of a group of geometers known as Professor Baker’s "Tea Party", who met once a week to discuss the areas of research in which we were all interested. .