Martyn Cundy

Who was Martyn Cundy?

Henry Martyn Cundy was a mathematics teacher and professor in Britain and Malawi as well as a singer, musician and poet. He was one of the founders of the School Mathematics Project to reform O level and A level teaching. Through this he had a big effect on maths teaching in Britain and especially in Africa.

Cundy attended Monkton Combe School and then studied mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he earned a PhD in quantum theory in 1938. He taught mathematics at Sherborne School from 1938 until 1966. He was Deputy Director of the School Mathematics Project between 1967 and 1968. In 1968 he became Professor of Mathematics at the University of Malawi, and held the post until 1975.

He married Kathleen Ethel Hemmings in 1939 and had three children, including Ian Cundy, successively Bishop of Lewes and of Peterborough.