Person: Pitt, Harry Raymond
Harry Pitt was an Engish mathematician who worked in real analysis and probability theory.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- In his final year at King Edward's School, Pitt won a scholarship to read mathematics at Peterhouse, Cambridge.
- Pitt undertook research on Tauberian Theorems, an area that had been greatly developed by Norbert Wiener in the early 1930s.
- Pitt was awarded a doctorate by the University of Cambridge in 1938 for his thesis General Tauberian Theorems.
- In 1939 Pitt was appointed as an assistant lecturer at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.
- 'The Times' remarks that Pitt refused a commission because he felt that such status would limit his freedom to influence senior officers.
- The war ended in 1945 and Pitt finished his war work, being appointed as Professor of Mathematics at Queen's University Belfast.
- After five years in Belfast, Pitt moved to Nottingham in 1950 when appointed as Professor of Pure Mathematics at the university there.
- Then Pitt, the second holder of the Mathematics chair, persuaded the university to found a chair of Applied Mathematics.
- With other arrangements which Pitt made, the atmosphere felt as if, provided one worked conscientiously, good values were handed out on a plate.
- The pleasure in the Department was real when Harry Pitt was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society in 1957, and Rodney Hill likewise in 1961.
- Pitt became involved in university administration being first a member of the Council, then Vice-dean followed by Dean of the Faculty of Science and, finally, Deputy Vice-Chancellor.
- The change in direction for Pitt's career into administration became, in a sense, complete in 1964 when he was appointed as Vice-Chancellor of Reading University.
- After he retired as Vice-Chancellor, Pitt served in a number of ways such as being a member of the Royal Society Education Committee from 1980 to 1985 and he was president of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications in 1984-85.
- Pitt received many honours in addition to election to a fellowship of the Royal Society which we mentioned above.
Born 3 June 1914, Greets Green, West Bromwich, Staffordshire, England. Died 8 October 2005, Derby, England.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Origin England
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
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- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
