Obituary: James (Jim) Gourlay Clunie 1926-2013

Jim was born on 26 October 1926 in St. Andrews and attended Madras College there. He was awarded the college's prestigious Dux (leader) in Science in 1944. He entered the University of St. Andrews in 1945, having won that university's Bursary Competition; he was ranked number one in the competition for all the faculties. He graduated in 1949 with first class honours in Mathematics. He then went to Aberdeen University for his PhD, supervised by Professor Archibald James Macintyre. In his PhD thesis, Jim developed what quickly became the ‘modern’ approach to Wiman–Valiron theory. The results were published in J. London Math. Soc. (28 (1953) 58–66 and 30 (1955) 32–42). I saw these two beautiful papers while I was in Exeter, and, when I came to Imperial College, I was determined to get Jim to join the department as soon as possible. Jim had been appointed to a lectureship at the University of North Staffordshire, Keele in 1952 and worked there until he came to us at Imperial College in 1956. He was elected a member of the LMS on 20 February, 1958 and promoted to a Professorship at Imperial College in 1964. Our research school there flourished and we were soon joined by Noel Baker, Thomas Kövari, Klaus Roth and Christian Pommerenke. Jim had a number of PhD students including Milne Anderson, David Brannan, Qazi Ibadur Rahman, Terry Sheil-Small, Derek Thomas and Brian Twomey. Jim semi-retired from Imperial College in 1981 for a Research Fellowship at the Open University, which he held till 1986. In that year he became an honorary Research Associate at the University of York. There, he and I were together again with other analysts Richard Hall, Terry Sheil-Small, Maurice Dodson and their research students. Jim visited the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1959–1960. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa by the National University of Ireland in 1988. Jim married Nancy Toff in 1955 and many of us remember their hospitality and kindness in London, Milton Keynes and York. Sadly Nancy started to suffer from Alzheimer's and had to move to the Retreat in York, where she died in 2000. Jim visited Nancy every day in the Retreat. He never really recovered from her death. Jim and Nancy were a wonderfully devoted couple and loving parents to their daughter Fiona, and loving grandparents to their grandson Zack and granddaughter Alex. Jim would have been delighted to hear that Alex received a PhD in Applied Psychology from Heriot-Watt in 2014. Sadly, Zack died a few months before Jim did (after several troubled years), though Jim was fortunately never aware of this. Jim had Polio when he was four and this left him suffering in his legs all his life. However, he never complained and in spite of his handicap he led an active and energetic life. He was an outdoor person and liked rowing, walking, cycling, swimming and golf. On one occasion he, Pommerenke and I found ourselves on a miniature golf course in America. He did very well, while Pommerenke's and my results were miserable. Life became increasingly difficult for Jim after Nancy died and he retired to the care home Lamel Beeches where he was well looked after. He suffered a stroke in 2009, and after this his muscles weakened and he lost the use of his right leg completely. He died on 5 March, 2013. Jim was the first person I consulted with any academic or mathematical problem. His advice was always wise and sound. I feel privileged to have known him for over half a century and to have collaborated with him. He was a very private person and kept his feelings to himself. I would like to conclude this section with extracts from a few of the many tributes to him. I will start with two from the funeral oration by Margaret Jenkins. It was non-religious, since Jim has been described as an ‘atheist, but a Presbyterian atheist’. Jim's daughter Fiona Crawford wrote: ‘His work and his sociable nature brought him in contact with a huge number of people, all of whom will remember him in different ways. However, he was a father to only one person in the whole world, namely me. I don’t remember any time when Dad was not working very, very hard. And, I might add, enjoying it enormously. Wherever we lived in London, be it north or south of the river, he would walk for 20 min to the Tube station, travel for an hour and a half on the underground, and walk for another 10 min at the other end to his work place, doing the whole journey in reverse at the end of a long day. In fact, he was often not home before 9 o’clock in the evening, having waited till after the rush hour to be sure of getting a seat on the train, since he could not have endured such a journey standing up. At weekends Dad would always be outside tending our lovely garden and, often, decorating our house. He took every opportunity to get lots of exercise, including using a cylinder push mower to cut a big lawn. Many times I heard my mother shout in fright when she saw that he’d shinned up a huge ladder to clear the gutters or paint the outside of the house. He never had an accident, though most weekends he’d arrive at the dinner table with a handkerchief wrapped round a finger or thumb, having sliced it while pruning roses or sawing wood. One of my clearest memories is of when Dad dispatched a very large plum tree in our back garden at Wembley. It had been a beautiful tree providing many pounds of plums every year, but then it got silver leaf and had to go so as not to infect others nearby. Ever the do-it-yourselfer, Dad managed to obtain some dynamite and blew the tree up. Of course, I had to be safely indoors at the time, but I do remember a lot of noise and drama, and I feel the same way about it that I do about travelling on steam trains, that I was glad to be privy to something that couldn’t be done today. I thought about Dad last Saturday when I watched the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. Dad and I always watched it together every year, in the days when it was just a smallish event that happened around the corner from us when we lived in Wimbledon, only four stops to Putney on the District Line. Dad had superb upper-body strength and was very good at rowing, something we always did on holiday if possible, when not visiting a putting green. He taught me to swim at the age of eight, when we would go to the local open-air pool for an hour every morning before school and work. I’d practise at the shallow end while he powered up and down the pool for 30 lengths or more, his arms turning like millwheels, never seeming to tire. I’d like to finish with a very short quotation from Rudyard Kipling's “ Story of the Gadsbys ”.Down to Gehenna Or up to the throne He travels fastest Who travels alone.’ Professor Milne Anderson wrote: ‘We have heard about Jim as a father, but he was also a respected mathematician and Fiona has received many messages from former colleagues. It was very easy to love and admire Jim Clunie. The whole mathematical community appreciated his mathematics as well as his personal qualities. He bore the curse of his bad leg with uncomplaining stoicism and never let it interfere with his life or impair his sense of humour. It was with Imperial College that he was most closely associated. He was there for 25 years and produced a succession of doctoral students, many of whom went on to professorships in various places. In my own experience, he was a great person to go to with a problem, always making some illuminating and helpful comments. He first sprang to prominence with his work on the Wiman–Valiron theory, but soon spread himself over all complex analysis. Clunie's Lemma plays a vital role in the theory of value distribution, while there is also Clunie's constant, whose precise value is not yet known. There is also the Clunie–Jack Lemma in univalent function theory. These ideas have stimulated much research. All this was combined with a friendly and concerned attitude. He was a good administrator, being for many years on the editorial board of the London Mathematical Society and being vice-president in 1967. He was an honorary doctor of the National University of Ireland. But he wore all his distinctions lightly and was always approachable. He will be greatly missed and our sympathy goes to his daughter Fiona and granddaughter Alex.’ Professor Linda Sons wrote: ‘Jim, as you note, was always rather a private person. The first time I heard him lecture at Imperial was as part of a course in Functional Analysis he was giving in the fall of my first visit there. He was extremely organized and I got a nice set of notes from his talks, the course being centred on topics such as multipliers, etc. But the first class I went to was a test of my ears …. I don’t think I understood much of what he said, because his accent was so Scottish … still I got a good set of notes, because he wrote everything on the board in a legible fashion, and by the second class I got used to his accent and “eepsilon”. When I was giving a talk on my research one time and Jim was in the audience, a mathematician of my vintage interrupted me a couple of times with his “superior” attitude of knowledge until Jim spoke up and made a direct remark to the guy with an “of course…” statement which totally shut up the guy. The guy was being a jerk, and Jim had enough of it. On a couple of rare occasions Jim saw that I was invited to join him and a couple of other mathematicians for a “pint” at the end of a day just to chat. There was some talk of mathematics but mostly it was just informal time on a personal level. It was one of the few times I remember his saying anything about himself. He clearly took pride in Fiona and his granddaughter. I saw Jim's approach to mathematics as being different from that of many other mathematicians. If you were to ask him whether he thought a certain theorem or fact was true, most mathematicians I know would begin to outline a proof, or a series of statements as to how one might approach a proof for that theorem. Not Jim …. He would often muse on what it would take to produce a counterexample. And, as we know, he produced some great examples. Jim was certainly always open to discussing mathematics which interested you and seldom talked about what was his major interest at the time …. And his ways were always kind and unassuming.’ Professor Q. I. Rahman wrote: ‘My main recollection of my relationship with him as a student at the Imperial College is that, as advisor, he was always available and very generous with his help. After my departure from London in 1961 I had relatively little contact with him until the summer of 1966, when we met each other in La Jolla, California for several weeks for the Symposium on Entire Functions and Related Parts of Analysis. Since that time our relationship became increasingly close. He visited Montreal on several occasions. He was always eager to know about the problems I was interested in and often had some very useful observations to make after thinking about them for a few days. Some of his remarks and suggestions helped me make considerable progress with the problems I was trying to resolve. I did publish one paper with him in 1998 and another with him and W. H. Walker (Auckland) in 2000, but that does not tell the full extent of the relationship I had with him. In a way he was my lifelong advisor. Since about 1983, I saw Professor as a and whom I could ask for advice about personal His of were always to the and very a few years I used to talk to him by on a and always looked to the but then one day in I that it might be for him to up the After that I only wrote to him and often it was Fiona on his Sadly, soon after the Professor Rahman Professor wrote to father will be well by many of the mathematical by were of of the National University of Ireland when he over an of time as in for this His of papers by of these for the and were greatly and his advice was In his to Ireland to of these were He a full part in the local to to the various degree and the In difficult his was always to These were also great occasions as well and long and with the results of students different degree he would join the local for a and them with and humour. He such occasions Many of us from his and knowledge which he and at all In of his research work and as the awarded him an honorary in 1988. Many students went to Keynes to for their PhD, and others went there on were helped by him in many different ways and will not him for I with great the many I down with you and parents to a lovely by mother in about years when I was on of from University College and to College at the time and from my and were a for me at the time, and for the and hospitality to me when I was as one of the something which I also in Milton Keynes and York. I these Professor David wrote: first met Jim when I became a student at Imperial College in 1964. met at the morning and then a for an hour or so to what I had been doing in the and what I might work on in the the first I was really up on a lot of complex other that was but to me. At the same time, there was a good active student Derek Thomas had done a degree at College and so was by the to finish in he then went in to a lectureship at J. after some years he did a PhD in and that became his main academic interest though he in the London with Thomas he went in to a lectureship at Brian he had done an in with then a year at with when went to he left Brian with when he Brian did years in at and before to Terry he went to a lectureship at retired to with his and to in with he had at London of and before to I then lost of him. I went to at Jim's in Wembley. On another occasion he took Brian and me to the LMS in in to the LMS and in to a dinner in after his I remember that he took as his that in doing mathematics he was “ just a to I with him about this at the time, but he was a Jim to me the of univalent by in that had made rather little progress by I made some but was by after I had done my Jim did a few ideas and but was to let you get at own on that until you help. In Jim and I organized a in on Analysis and whose were published by was one of the last such LMS but had a of including and Jim's role was on the academic while I on the It was a great and the papers in the by In 1983, we a but I don’t remember much about it. At one of these in we a to and the in At another we a to and In I came to the Open in had never been of that he could from Imperial College to a academic for up to years his being would still be on his In spite of the at the time I was to the to Jim to a Research Fellowship in He and Nancy their in and a in Milton Keynes as well as another there for their married daughter Jim the to the At he had a He came and had a swim before to work in the He left the so that he could get a seat on the Tube to and on his way back home he would then a local for “ a In he and Nancy for round the “ for he one his and the he joined in the life of the in getting to know all the and on to in London from the In after years at the he to to York, where and his former student were then I was very about him but the that he could not have on much as a research at the of was that it was where I that he died not long after Jim had to York. However, Fiona to to be so that to at the he helped to from to had an series of complex and Brian and He with several of the One that had started in getting some to the in the I saw little of him he had to York. There was a One at in of his But by then Nancy his care and and Jim had to the dinner in his was very He took care of Nancy at home for some then visited her in a home in till she In he me that he was a of a though he still liked to hear about the various mathematicians in the whom he had known and about any other complex analysts the that he had known. he started not to the and to make to when you did get him. I think he rather lost after David also about about Jim's death. were the a former and know Jim as a and but I remember him as a in in the of him was in the garden the of his in a determined and He was thinking as he set And from Professor remember him as one of our at One was by the He had great strength in his arms and used to these up and down with one had two about four One day he so that the board came from and to the with a The tributes how much Jim was and respected as a great and a great Jim was a complex made to the of univalent and univalent Many of his results to be used by complex analysts and his papers as the for their ideas and to the of the developed in to these and also because their is in the by which from the of relatively of and Jim's work his Wiman–Valiron theory has a of great with many for to complex and of the many of the have been by and with in for Jim's papers his great for for in 1955 he published of which were on various of the of However, after to Imperial College in he was to work on univalent known as which at the time was a active of by the from that if is in the class that a a is and in the open then a for In it was known only that a for where that the a for and and that it is The was also known to be for of such as univalent for which every of the of be joined to the by a in the Jim results for many of in work with but at first he the problems for univalent of the that and in the open At the time, these problems to be difficult for the class but by an he was in to obtain the for in the a he liked so much that he the proof in his lecture at Imperial College in the was to be by in with a by and by and Pommerenke. came as a great to complex including for of the work on univalent at various of the The paper with is also concerned with and giving for their These results have in the theory of in in to of the used paper is Jim used a and to that if is a then every value a of for which was in full to by and in The paper has also many In this Jim the and the of the of a function and a function with of and The he the of this Jim's and at problems that he was an and he wrote papers with at other including one with and with Milne Anderson, had been Jim's PhD students. One of Jim's most papers was with Anderson and while the was visiting Imperial paper concerned and These had been but in this paper the a for many of their paper on and has been to many times because the their paper with a of about the but because in the paper that these have a that with to many other of and also because these of of to other such as the of another paper was with Terry Sheil-Small, another of Jim's former PhD students. In this the the theory of univalent which in the of and in many of was the first paper to such in an way to the class providing a for huge of work. Many of Jim's papers with problems about his first mathematical in he by the in the of a of on the set of an using his Wiman–Valiron theory in a and way to that if is a function of then the a of the for large or as on the as it does in the in Jim joined with and to a to the of a function which that for any in the the second of has many that do not on In the that this is the for the of for any value of Not a role is in the proof of this by Wiman–Valiron theory. At Imperial College Jim supervised research students, Qazi Ibadur Rahman James Milne Anderson Terry Derek Thomas David Brian In the section on Jim Clunie's mathematical for helpful to James Milne Anderson, David Brannan, and Jim

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.