Frank Bonsall Explained

Frank Featherstone Bonsall FRS^[1] (31 March 1920, Crouch End, London – 22 February 2011,^[2] Harrogate) was a British mathematician.^[3]

Personal life

Bonsall was born on 31 March 1920, the youngest son of Wilfred C Bonsall and Sarah Frank. His older brother was Arthur Bonsall.^[4] He married Gillian Patrick, a Somerville graduate, in 1947. Bonsall and his wife were keen hill-walkers.^[5] He wrote two articles for The Scottish Mountaineering Club on the definition of a Munro. After his retirement, Bonsall and his wife moved to Harrogate.

Career

Bonsall graduated from Bishop's Stortford College in 1938, and studied at Merton College, Oxford.^[6] He served in World War II, in the Corps of Royal Engineers, and in India from 1944 to 1946.^[7]

He lectured at the University of Edinburgh from 1947 to 1948; was visiting associate professor at Oklahoma State University from 1950 to 1951; taught at Newcastle University, with Werner Wolfgang Rogosinski in the 1950s. He taught at the University of Edinburgh, from 1963 to 1984.^[8] In 1963, a second chair in Mathematics was established (the Maclaurin chair). Bonsall took up the chair in 1965, but spent the following year as a visiting professor at Yale.^[4] In 1966, he was awarded the London Mathematical Society's Berwick Prize.

Despite not himself having a PhD, Bonsall supervised many PhD candidates^[9] who knew him affectionately as "FFB".

Works

• Compact linear operators, Yale University, Dept. of Mathematics, 1967
• Frank F. Bonsall, John Duncan, Numerical ranges of operators and normed spaces and of all elements of normed algebras, London Mathematical Society, 1971
• Frank F. Bonsall, J. Duncan, Numerical ranges II, Cambridge univ. press, 1973
• Frank F. Bonsall, J. Duncan, Complete normed algebras, 1973^[10]

See also

• Arthur Bonsall
• Berwick Prize
• List of fellows of the Royal Society elected in 1970
• List of mathematicians (B)

External links

• Frank Bonsall - The Mathematics Genealogy Project
• search on author FF Bonsall from Google Scholar

Notes and References

1. Gillespie. T. A.. 2020. Frank Featherstone Bonsall. 31 March 1920 – 22 February 2011. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 69. 63–77. 10.1098/rsbm.2020.0007. 222142931. free.
2. Obituaries . University of Oxford Gazette . 141 . 4947 . 10 March 2011 . 500.
3. Web site: Frank Bonsall | Herald Scotland . 16 November 2011 . 16 January 2015 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150116161314/http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/obituaries/frank-bonsall-1.1094739 . dead .
4. Web site: Frank Bonsall - Biography. mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk. 29 October 2021.
5. http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/obits_alpha/Bonsall%20_VMH.pdf
6. Book: Levens. R.G.C.. Merton College Register 1900–1964. 1964. Basil Blackwell. Oxford. 290.
7. Web site: Frank Bonsall - Biography. https://archive.today/20120731055029/http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Bonsall.html. dead. Archive.today. 31 July 2012. 29 October 2021.
8. News: Professor Frank Bonsall: Leading mathematician of the post-war years who led research into functional analysis. Alastair Gillespie. 4 April 2011. The Independent.
9. Web site: Frank Bonsall - The Mathematics Genealogy Project. Mathgenealogy.org. 29 October 2021.
10. Rickart, C. E.. Charles Earl Rickart. Review: Complete normed algebras by F. F. Bonsall and J. Duncan. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.. 1975. 81, Part 1. 3. 514–522. 10.1090/s0002-9904-1975-13727-x. free.