Frances Hardcastle
Frances Hardcastle was an English mathematician and one of the founding members of the American Mathematical Society in 1894. Her work included contributions to the theory of point groups.Biography
Her father was Henry Hardcastle, a barrister, and her maternal grandfather was the astronomer, mathematician and chemist John Herschel.
Born in Writtle, just outside Chelmsford in Essex, she was educated at Girton College, and obtained a Certificate in Mathematics.
In 1892 she went to the University of Chicago for a year as an honorary fellow, then spent another year at Bryn Mawr College studying under Charlotte Scott. While at Bryn Mawr she was president of the Graduate Club, and translated Klein's book On Riemann's Theory of Algebraic functions and Integrals. In 1895 she recommenced postgraduate studies at Cambridge, and within a few years published several papers on point-groups. She earned a BA degree from the University of London in 1903. Trinity College Dublin awarded her an MA in 1905.
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.
Hardcastle was the lifelong companion of Dr Ethel Williams, a physician, Justice of the Peace, feminist and social reformer.Notable publications
