Wrangler (University of Cambridge)

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At the University of Cambridge, a Wrangler is a student who has completed the third year (called Part II) of the Mathematical Tripos with first-class honours. Until 1909, when the class list ceased to be published in rank order, the highest-scoring student was named the Senior Wrangler, the second highest-scoring student the Second Wrangler and so on. At the other end of the scale, the person who achieved the lowest exam marks, but still earned a third-class degree, was known as the wooden spoon.

Obtaining the position of a highly ranked Wrangler created many opportunities for the individual's subsequent profession. They would often become Fellows initially, but these were only short term appointments in most cases, before the individual moved on to other professions, such as law, the Church or medicine.^[1] University mathematics professors in the United Kingdom and British Empire were often one of the top three Wranglers.^[1]

The order of Wranglers was widely publicized in national newspapers and shaped the public's perception of the study of mathematics as the most intellectually challenging. According to Andrew Warwick, author of Masters of Theory, "The term 'Senior Wrangler' became synonymous with academic supremacy".

Contents 1 Past wranglers 1.1 Optimes 2 Senior Wranglers who achieved distinction outside mathematics 3 In popular culture 4 Notes 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Past wranglers

Senior Wranglers have included some of Britain's most brilliant mathematicians and scientists, including John Herschel, Arthur Cayley, George Gabriel Stokes, Lord Rayleigh, Arthur Eddington and J. E. Littlewood. John Couch Adams's score was so high that there was a greater gap between him and the Second Wrangler than between the Second Wrangler and the Wooden Spoon.^{[citation needed]}

Interestingly, there are some equally if not more famous names associated with the rank of Second Wrangler (such as Alfred Marshall, James Clerk Maxwell, J. J. Thomson and Lord Kelvin). Legend has it that Kelvin was so confident that he had come top of the exam that he asked his servant to run to the Senate House and check who the second wrangler was. The servant returned and informed him, "You, sir"! It is also suggested that the final exam required the students to write a proof of a theorem which Kelvin himself had provided the proof for, earlier in the course; unfortunately, because he had created it, it hadn't occurred to him to learn it, and he spent a lot of time working it out from scratch - while the student who achieved Senior Wrangler put it down to having committed the proof to memory.^{[citation needed]}

There has long been a culture of fierce competition at mathematics exams at Cambridge. However, it is certainly not true to say that top marks in the Cambridge mathematics exam guaranteed the Senior Wrangler success in life; the exams were largely a test of speed in applying familiar rules, and some of the most inventive and original students of Mathematics at Cambridge did not come top of their class (Bragg was 3rd, Hardy was 4th, Sedgwick 5th, Malthus was 9th, Bertrand Russell was 7th and Keynes was 12th) and some fared even worse (Klaus Roth was not even a wrangler) and Martin Rees would go on to become one of the worlds leading scientists along with holding the posts of Master of Trinity College (Cambridge) and President of the Royal Society.

The first woman to top the mathematics list, albeit unofficially, was Philippa Fawcett, who took the exams in 1890. At the time, women were not officially ranked, although they were told how they had done compared to the male candidates, so she was ranked "above the Senior Wrangler".

The examination was the most important in England at the time, and the results were given great publicity. In 1865 Lord Rayleigh was Senior Wrangler, and The Times of 30 January 1865 printed a story asserting that he had not gained this distinction through favouritism as heir to a peerage.

In 1909, the order of merit was abolished and lists of students who had completed the mathematics exams were sorted alphabetically in each of the three classes of honours, and were not based on individual marks. The last official senior wrangler was P. J. Daniell, who graduated in 1909.

[edit] Optimes

Students who achieve second-class and third-class mathematics degrees are known as Senior Optimes (second-class) and Junior Optimes (third-class). Cambridge did not divide its examination classification in mathematics into 2:1s and 2:2s until 1995 but now there are Senior Optimes Division 1 and Senior Optimes Division 2.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Senior Wranglers who achieved distinction outside mathematics

• Donald MacAlister, Senior Wrangler in 1877. MacAlister became a physician, and principal and vice-chancellor and, later, chancellor of the University of Glasgow. The postcard portrait was part of the cult of celebrity surrounding the senior wrangler.
• William Paley, Senior Wrangler in 1763 was a British divine, Christian apologist, utilitarian, and philosopher. He is best remembered for his watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of God in his book Natural Theology.
• George Pretyman, Senior Wrangler and Smith's prize winner in 1772, became Bishop of Winchester, Dean of St Paul's and a confidant of prime minister William Pitt the Younger where he made use of his mathematical skills in advising on the sinking fund.
• Edward Hall Alderson, Senior Wrangler and Smith's prize winner in 1809. Alderson became an eminent lawyer and judge. His mathematical background doubtless assisted his devastating cross-examination of George Stephenson over the surveying of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The young Alderson had been tutored by Edward Maltby who was eighth wrangler in 1792 and went on to become a controversial Bishop of Durham.
• Other senior wranglers who also won Smith's prize and went on to become eminent lawyers and judges include:
  • Thomas Starkie (1803);
  • Frederick Pollock (1806); and
  • William Henry Maule (1810).
• Henry Martyn who became a chaplain in the East India Company, and translated the New Testament into Urdu and Persian^[2]

[edit] In popular culture

• 'The Senior Wrangler' is a member of the faculty of Unseen University in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of novels
• 'Wrangler' is a jargon term applied to codebreakers in some of John Le Carre's spy novels, such as 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Galton, Francis (2000). "Classification of Men According to their Natural Gifts". in James Roy Newman. The World of Mathematics. 2. Courier Dover Publications. ISBN 0486411508. http://books.google.com/books?id=se5iE4DMPioC. 
• D. O. Forfar (1996/7) What became of the senior wranglers?, Mathematical spectrum 29, 1-4.
  • a survey of the subsequent careers of senior wranglers during the 157 years (1753-1909) in which the results of Cambridge’s mathematical tripos were published in order of merit.
• Peter Groenewegen (2003). A Soaring Eagle: Alfred Marshall 1842-1924. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. ISBN 1-85898-151-4.
  • gives the story about Rayleigh; Alfred Marshall was the commoner who came second to Rayleigh.
• C. M. Neale (1907) The Senior Wranglers of the University of Cambridge. Available online
• Andrew Warwick (2003) Masters of Theory: Cambridge and the Rise of Mathematical Physics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-87374-9
  • a very thorough account of the Cambridge system in the 19th century. Appendix A lists the top 10 wranglers from 1865 to 1909 with their coaches and their colleges.

[edit] External links

Information on the wranglers in the period 1860-1940 can be extracted from the BritMath database

• BritMath

Many of the wranglers who made careers in mathematics can be identified by searching on "wrangler" in

• The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive
• Cambridge Mathematical Tripos: Wooden Spoons