W.J. Greenstreet

W.J. Greenstreet MA
File:Greenstreet, W.J..jpg
Born	1861
Died	1930
Residence	Marling School, Stroud
Occupation	academic educator
Society Membership membership ordinary fellow left 1907 last listed elected_AI 1904.05.24 societies Mathematical Association

Notes

House Notes

Proposed by W.A. Evans; seconded by Henry Balfour 1904.05.10

Notes From Elsewhere

obit in The Mathematical Gazette vol. 15 no. 209 Oct. 1930 - which he edited until his death
My recollections of W J Greenstreet date back half a century when we were both undergraduates at Cambridge, but we did not become personally acquainted till many years later. He had a slightly stooping figure and kind protective face which dissolved any feeling of awe produced by his great strength and height, penetrating eyes, and full-grown beard. He had two inseparable friends, E F J Love and G F Stout. When in company together they drew the attention of every one who saw them. They looked more like three generations than contemporaries, Greenstreet being plainly the responsible head and Stout the cheerful but inscrutable infant, while Love appeared to be more normal and rather embarrassed by the strangeness of his companions. It was natural that such a remarkable- looking trio should receive a nickname; so they became known as the Three Graces. Too soon the inseparables were to become separated, each to make his mark in his special province; Greenstreet in Mathematics, Love in Science and Thermodynamics, and Stout in Classics and Philosophy.
It was a common interest in the Mathematical Gazette that brought Greenstreet and myself into touch with one another. At the beginning of 1896 I agreed to take charge of the Gazette until a permanent successor to its editor and founder, E M Langley, could be found. I do not remember how it came about; but very soon I was relying on Greenstreet for untiring help and advice. In July, 1897, he wrote that he would help in any way the Council thought advisable; and a year later he yielded to the pressure of myself and his friend Professor Lloyd Tanner to accept the editorship. From that time he carried on the difficult and heavy work till his death, more than thirty years later. As the circle of his contributors increased he gradually succeeded in making the Gazette the most readable and interesting of all mathematical journals. When he first undertook it, and for a further dozen years, he was Headmaster of the Marling School, Stroud; and I used to spend weekends there from time to time. It was a joyous household. His wife was one of the brilliant family of Spenders, and contributed under the name of Aunt Medina the fashion articles to the Daily News, while Greenstreet supplied the Science Notes to the Westminster Gazette so long as it remained an evening paper. The rest of the household consisted of the school and family nurse, who afterwards became his second wife, and two small children. All these pursued their individual aims and experiments independently of the rest, but formed a most harmonious whole. The Mathematical Gazette and methods of teaching were regarded as queer but harmless subjects of conversation in which they had no share. Greenstreet was specially keen on oral teaching and quickness of answering, a natural outcome of his own quickness and versatility. He was writing an Algebra in collaboration with Lloyd Tanner in which his special methods were elaborated; but, so far as I know, it never saw the light, and probably was never completed. With his wife he also made a not inappreciable addition to their joint income by solving prize competitions, acrostics and others; the same taste found an incessant and more professional but unremunerated satisfaction in the mathematical columns of the Educational Times.
A great tragedy befell him in the summer holidays of 1903, when his wife was drowned in his sight in a heroic and unavailing attempt to save her maid. She was a good swimmer but knew full well what a risk she ran from a weak heart. The remembrance of that day was written on his face for the rest of his life, and seemed to lurk in the sound of every word he spoke. It was followed by years of great despondency in which all interest in life had vanished. There were times when he was in great danger of falling into a state of melancholy; but he was saved by forcing his mind into the ordinary routine of his duties as headmaster and editor, and by a sense, whether conscious or not, that his mission in life was not yet completed. Hard work and a deep concern for others finally brought him round to a normal state once more.
Greenstreet did not fail to reach distinction; his name was well known to the whole mathematical world, and his monument was the Mathematical Gazette; but he did not reach a position to which his merit and ability entitled him. Luck was against him; his chance never came; and he was content. At the age of fifty he found that his ideals for his school were in opposition to those under whom he held his appointment, and in order not to sacrifice his freedom he resigned. He took a house on Burghfield Common in the midst of a fir-clad country, a few miles outside Reading; and there continued his literary work, lectured to pupil teachers, and applied himself with ever-increasing ardour to the editing of his favourite Gazette. His knowledge of what had been written in the range of modern elementary mathematics was probably greater than that of any other living person. He not only remembered what had been written on any topic but could lay his hands at once in his library on the volume where it was to be found. His memory and rapidity and ease of literary expression were such that he seldom had to make any alteration in the first draft of the articles and reviews he wrote. His conversation was full of humour, always with a warm and sympathetic ring in it; while everything he said was exhilarating and easy of apprehension. He was a great friend. He asked for and gained one's complete confidence. We discussed all our hopes and fears, successes and failures, and in any case of doubt or trouble his counsel was always wise and freely given. While one felt that he would himself be prepared to take risks regardless of consequences he would try to dissuade others from doing so.
Mention ought not to be omitted of the other inmates of the house on Burghfield Common. The chief of these were Sohrab and Rustum, twin pugs, who behaved with great decorum, and understood all that their master said to them. He was their benevolent ruler and protector. They formed his body-guard when he went a stroll; and came out to receive him when he returned from longer journeys. There was also an advance guard, a little black dog of incredible activity and springy lightness, the only one of its kind I have known.
His devoted wife survives him; also his son, Surgeon-Commander B de M Greenstreet R.N., and his daughter, who spent her energy and strength and impaired her health in the cause of her Country.
F. S. M.

Reprinted, by kind permission, from Nature, Aug. 2, 1930.
By the death of William John Greenstreet on June 28 the mathematical world loses not an explorer or a geographer, but, if the metaphor may be pressed, a traveller familiar with a larger variety of landscape than almost any of his contemporaries. Born in 1861 and educated at St John's College, Cambridge, he was an assistant master from 1882 until 1889, and headmaster of Marling School, Stroud, from 1891 until 1910, when he retired to Burghfield Common, near Reading, with the intention of devoting himself to literary work. For many years he had been a regular contributor to Notes and Queries and to the Westminster Gazette, and editor of the Mathematical Gazette, and he had every reason to anticipate a life congenial to his frugal tastes.
The War, however, put an end to Greenstreet's work for the Westminster Gazette, and at the same time raised the cost of living to an unforeseen level. The result was an extension of an activity which he had created, namely, the supervision of the education of pupil-teachers in village schools; the value of this work, which he had begun voluntarily in the schools nearest to his home, came to be recognised by the county educational authorities, and soon from 80 to 90 students looked to him for guidance, and he was known throughout the countryside, reaping in labours which earned him a livelihood the reward of spontaneous help given to his neighbours in happier years.
Meanwhile his editorship of the Mathematical Gazette continued, and it was this which made Greenstreet's name familiar to every mathematician in England. While the Gazette, as befits the organ of the Mathematical Association, has been concerned primarily with problems of school teaching, from elementary arithmetic to scholarship analysis, the characteristic features of the journal have revealed the editor. Greenstreet always desired to attain, and believed that all teachers benefit if they can attain, to such appreciation of current advances in mathematics as is possible without intensive study of special branches; he therefore encouraged ample notices of treatises, Continental and American as well as English, far beyond the range of school mathematics, until the review pages of his Gazette were admitted to be among the beet in the world. Also, he had an immense knowledge of the personalities of literary, scientific, and social history, the product of omnivorous and rapid reading and a retentive memory; one result was that his own reviews of historical works, now tracing cross-currents of influence, now bringing a dead name to life by an anecdote or an epigram, enriched alike the books with which they dealt and the journal in which they appeared; another result was that every spare corner of the Gazette was filled by a 'gleaning', some quaint incidental reference to mathematics or to a mathematician found perhaps in classical literature, perhaps in a daily newspaper. In short, Greenstreet gave a character and a standing to a periodical which might have become nothing but a pedagogical mouthpiece; and this was the achievement that was acknowledged when the completion, in 1929, of thirty years of his editorship was the occasion of a testimonial to which some two hundred mathematicians subscribed.
Of Greenstreet's literary and musical interests it is impossible to speak here, but mention must be made of his enthusiasm for De Morgan. Once he was addressed as the De Morgan of his time, and this compliment pleased him as no other ever did. In wealth of biographical and bibliographical knowledge each was indeed unrivalled in his day, and this was perhaps all that the comparison was intended to convey, but one may recognise also in the two men the came sense of honour and the same sense of humour. Of the multitude of correspondents and contributors who were grateful for Greenstreet's help and counsel, few could claim to know him personally. His friends hold the memory of a man who never spoke a wounding or complaining word, of one who was prodigal of his knowledge, forbearing in his judgments, and ready with his laughter.
E. H. N.