Joseph H. M. Wedderburn, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mathematics of Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.A., was found dead in his residence at Princeton on 9 October 1948. Professor Wedderburn who was a bachelor had, for many years, lived alone. His body was found by the people who took care of the house and grounds. The medical authorities concluded, after examination, that death had occurred several days previously as a result of a heart attack. Wedderburn was born on 26 February 1882, in Forfar, Scotland, the tenth child in a family of fourteen children, which included seven brothers and six sisters. His father was Alexander Stormonth Maclagen Wedderburn, M.D., of Pearsie. His mother was Anne Ogilvie. On his father’s side his grandfather was Parish Minister of Kinfauns and Professor of Exegesis in the Free Church College of Aberdeen. His paternal great-grandfather was Parish Minister of Blair Atholl and a Chaplain in the Black Watch. On his maternal side his grandfather was a lawyer in Dundee, as had been true of the family for several preceding generations. The detailed history of the Wedderburn family has been recorded in the
Wedderburn Book
. Of his many brothers and sisters only two survived him, a brother, Ernest Wedderburn of Edinburgh, Scotland, and a sister, Miss Elizabeth Wedderburn, of Paris, France. Wedderburn’s early school years were spent at the Forfar Academy from 1887 to 1895. In the latter year he transferred for the last three years of his school education to George Watson’s College in Edinburgh, 1895-1898. From this college at the age of sixteen and a half years he obtained the leaving scholarship and entered Edinburgh University in the autumn of 1898. After five years as a student in this university he obtained, in 1903, the M.A. degree with First-Class Honours in Mathematics.
