From THE CITY OF OXFORD HIGH SCHOOL MAGAZINE VoL. LVIII, iii JULY 1966 No. 186
It falls to the lot of the last issue of the School Magazine to report the passing of one of its very distinguished Old Boys, who, at the time of his death, was also Chairman of Governors, a post which he had held since 1952.
T. W. Chaundy came to the School in 1896 where he began a career of academic successes culminating in an Open Mathematical Scholarship in 1906. He took with him also a Ewelme Exhibition and an Exhibition gained the year before for the candidate who was placed first in the First Class of the Oxford Senior Locals. He had been placed top in the Junior son, when the First. Class Honours in the Senior, Junior and Preliminary Local Examinations were also placed in an order of merit.
Incidentally the result list quoted at the Prize-giving that year records that Chaundy obtained distinctions in Religious Knowledge (2nd), English Language and Literature (4th), Latin (9th), Greek (19th), French (11th), Mathematics (1st) and Higher Mathematics (1st). At Balliol his First in Mathematical Moderations in 1907 was followed by a First in Finals in 1909. He had collected the Junior University Mathematical Scholarship in 1907 and the Senior University Mathematical Scholarship fell to him in 1910. He was appointed a Lecturer at Christ Church in that year and in 1912 was elected Student. Besides serving Christ Church faithfully during the rest of his teaching career, he was made a University Lecturer in 1926 and later the Reader in Mathematics.
He was an indefatigable teacher, who would never spare himself where he had a willing pupil. His whimsical sense of humour and fund of anecdotes richly rewarded those who were around him and it was in fact quite a coincidence that he followed as a tutor in mathe- matics, though not immediately, the author of Alice in Wonderland.
A great seeker for social reform he was, in his younger years as a don, the secretary of the Fabian Society. He served as Junior Proctor in 1926 and was a University member of the City Council from 1925 to 1929. Throughout the course of his long life his purpose was to be of service and, as a loyal son of Oxford, he indeed served his native City and his University with zeal and affection and his old School with love and pride. The fact that he was a Freeman of the City led to his election as Chairman of that historic body and from 1916 to 1924 he was a member of the former Poor Law Guardians. From 1935 he was a Trustee of the Municipal Charities, now the City of Oxford Charities, and in 1951 became its Chairman.
The Old Boys’ Club knew him as a one-time Magazine Secretary and also as Vice-President in 1913-1914, and under its new name of the Old Oxford Citizens he was President in 1950. He represented the Citizens on the Governing Body of the School and he would, we know, dearly have liked to be present at the final merging of the two Schools, the High School and Southfield School, due in September of this year, as he had been so closely involved in the negotiations leading to the establishment of the new Oxford School. But it was not to be.
He was known too by another circle of friends for his enthusiasm for and active participation in folk dancing, and the results of some of his energies and researches are to be seen in Oxford streets on May Mornings. He was always a regular visitor to Bampton on Whit-Mondays. The music so tastefully played at the funeral by Dr. Sidney Watson was a much appreciated tribute to this.
His published work, notably The Differential Calculus (with I. O. Griffith) 1914, The Differential Calculus (Clarendon Press) 1935 and The Printing of Mathematics with Barrett and Batey, and among other papers those in the Quarterly Journal of Mathematics, of which he was an Editor, gave him a wide reputation in mathematical circles and led to the conferment of a D.Sc. degree by the University in 1956.
The funeral service at the Cathedral on April 21st was attended by the Vice Chancellor and a very large gathering of friends in all walks of life both City and University. We extend to Mrs. Chaundy and his sons and daughters our sympathy in their bereavement.