Papers and correspondence of the British Association Mathematical Tables Committee

The papers include minute books, 1929-1948, Annual Reports, 1896, 1923-1939, 1948, and an undated Final report, correspondence and papers relating to elliptic functions, 1925-1943, and correspondence and papers relating to the Cunningham Bequest, 1930-1960.

The Committee was set up in 1871, 'for the purpose of reporting on Mathematical Tables, which it may be desirable to compute or reprint'; the Committee was re-formed and reorganised at various times but its purpose remained broadly along its original lines. In 1928 Col. A.J.C. Cunningham (member of the Committee, 1895-1901, Secretary, 1896-1901) died leaving in his will 'one-twelfth part (of my residuary estate) for preparing new Mathematical Tables in the Theory of Numbers'. This legacy was used to produce vols III, IV, V, VIII and IX of the B.A. Tables. The B.A. Committee held its final meeting on 23 June 1948, its assets and liabilities, including the residue of the Cunningham bequest, being transferred to the Royal Society on 30 June 1948.

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Printed Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of the British Association Mathematical Tables Committee: CSAC catalogue no. 58/2/78, 9 pp. Copies available from NCUACS, University of Bath.

Received for cataloguing in 1976-1977 by the Contemporary Scientific Archives Centre from Professor M.V. Wilkes who served on the Committee, 1939-1948, who had himself received them from Dr J.C.P. Miller, the last Secretary of the Committee, 1945-1948. Placed in the Bodleian Library (Gift) in 1978.