W. M. Gorman
Irish economist (1923-2003)
William Moore "Terence" Gorman (17 June 1923 – 12 January 2003) was an Irish economist and academic. He was predominantly a theorist and is most famous for his work on aggregation and separability of goods, and in this context he developed his famous Gorman polar form. Gorman's career saw him teach at University of Birmingham, Oxford, and the London School of Economics. He was honoured with the Presidency of the Econometric Society in 1972. His work was often highly technical and theoretical in nature, which made him incomprehensible to many of his contemporaries, but his keen eye for applications has given his work a lasting influence on modern economics.
Early life
Gorman was born in Kesh in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, on 17 June 1923. He spent his early childhood in Lusaka, Rhodesia, where his African nanny called him Terence, saying that William was not a proper Irish name; he was subsequently known as Terence, or 'Terry', throughout his life. After his father was shot dead when Gorman was only four years old, he returned with his mother and her staff to her family estate in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, where he was brought up.
He attended Mount Temple School in Rathgar, and Foyle College in Derry before moving on to Trinity College Dublin, in 1941, where he was elected a Scholar in mathematics in 1943. From 1943 to 1946, he interrupted his studies to serve in the Royal Navy as a rating and then petty officer, before returning to graduate in 1948 in economics and in 1949 in mathematics.
“W. M. Gorman” enters the record as irish economist (1923-2003). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Gorman, Irish and economist can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 12, 2023. The linked authority identifier is Q7945812. VIAF identifies the subject as 92016304. The Library of Congress control number is n95013894. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1923, 2003, 1972 and 1941.
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This entry incorporates text from “W. M. Gorman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.