Letters to Frances Cave-Brown-Cave

Letters written to Miss Cave by her Girton students and colleagues. Most are written around Christmas 1958 and 1959 but a few fall outside these dates. The letters from her students are mostly from those up at Girton in the twenties and early thirties, when Miss Cave was directing studies in Mathematics. They contain career and family news as well as reminiscences and news of contemporaries. Letters from Girton colleagues include Emily Hills (the Portress), Greta Hort (Research Fellow), Bertha Jeffreys (nee Swirles and filed under that name), Clara Kirchberger, Jean Lindsay, K M Peace and Elsie Whetnall. These letters contain news from College (and in the case of Bertha Jeffreys some discussion of mathematics candidates and their career destinations), and from further afield (Greta Hort's letters contain comment on her Department of Literature at the University of Aarhus) as well as general news.

Frances Evelyn Cave-Brown-Cave was educated at home in Streatham. She came up to Girton with her younger sister in 1895, as a College Scholar, to read mathematics and obtained a first in both parts of the Tripos (1898 and 1899). She received an MA from Trinity College Dublin (quasi ad eundem) in 1907 and from Cambridge in 1926. She went on to undertake statistical research for Professor Karl Pearson in London and was a research student at Girton 1901-03 before becoming Resident Lecturer in Mathematics at the College 1903-36, Director of Studies 1918-36 and Honorary Fellow 1942. She retired to Southampton and died in March 1965.

The letters are arranged in alphabetical order by Girton matriculation name. In many instances Miss Cave has noted the name on the front of the letter with some career details and whether or not she has replied.

Please cite as Girton College Archive, Cambridge, Letters to Frances Cave-Brown-Cave, GCPP Cave

The letters were given in June 2001 by Anne Cave-Brown-Cave, wife of Frances Cave-Brown-Cave's great nephew.

As at Sep 2008 an online catalogue was available at http://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/

Collection Description taken from JANUS in Sep 2008 as part of Genesis 2008 Project