Person: Hamill, Christine Mary

Christine Hamill was an English mathematician who specialised in group theory and finite geometry.

Christine studied first at St Paul's Girls' School where she won a foundation scholarship.
When Hamill studied there the head teacher was the classics scholar Ethel Strudwick (1880-1954).
Hamill moved to Perse School for Girls in Cambridge, a school which had been founded in 1881 to provide quality education for women.
In 1950, the year before she received her doctorate, Hamill was offered an Assistant Lectureship in Mathematics at the University of Sheffield which she accepted.
While an assistant lecturer at Sheffield, Hamill attended the Edinburgh Mathematical Society's St Andrews Colloquium held in St Andrews from 18 to 28 July 1951.
While at Sheffield, Hamill undertook research with Herbert D Deas, who was also a lecturer in mathematics at the University of Sheffield.
The paper did not appear in print until 1957, the year after Hamill died.
It had been submitted to Acta Crystallographica on 2 August 1955 but it was revised by Herbert Deas on 8 March 1957, almost exactly a year after Hamill's death.
In 1954 Hamill accepted a post as lecturer in the University of Ibadan in Nigeria.
Two of the lecture courses at the St Andrews Colloquium were of particular interest to Hamill, namely Philip Hall's course on Symmetric Functions in the Theory of Groups and Michael Atiyah's course on Topological Methods in Algebraic Geometry.
After four terms in Ibadan, Hamill contracted poliomyelitis and her death was rapid occurring only two days after she became ill.

Born 24 July 1923, London, England. Died 24 March 1956, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.

View full biography at MacTutor

Group Theory, Origin England, Women

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O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive