Frances Hardcastle

Frances Hardcastle (August 13, 1866 – December 26, 1941) was a mathematician and one of the founding members, in 1894, of the American Mathematical Society. Her work included contributions to the theory of point groups.

Biography

Her father was Henry Hardcastle, a barrister, and her grandfather was the astronomer, mathematician and chemist John Herschel. Born and educated in England, she was a fellow of Girton College, Cambridge from 1888 to 1892, where she obtained a Certificate in Mathematics. She left for the USA in 1892 to study at Bryn Mawr College, where she was president of the Graduate Club, though she did not earn a degree and returned to the UK in 1901. She earned her BA degree from the University of London in 1903.

Hardcastle was one of 156 British women who publicly supported the aims of the International Congress of Women, held in The Hague in April 1915. These aims were, "1. To demand that international disputes shall in future shall in future be settled by some other means than war," and "2. To claim that women shall have a voice in the affairs of nations." Until 1909, she was an Honorary Secretary of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS).

Hardcastle was the lifelong companion of Dr Ethel Williams, a Justice of the Peace, feminist and social reformer.

Notable publications

• "Observations on the Modern Theory of Point-Groups" (c. 1897) American Mathematical Society Bulletin (4)
• "Theorem Concerning the Special Systems of Point-Groups on a Particular type of Base-Curve" (1898) Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society (29)
• "Present State of the Theory of Point Groups" (1902) British Association Report 1900

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