Walter Hayman
British mathematician (1926–2020)
Walter Kurt Hayman FRS (formerly Haymann; 6 January 1926 – 1 January 2020) was a British mathematician known for contributions to complex analysis. He was a professor at Imperial College London.
Life and work
Hayman was born in Cologne, Germany, the son of Roman law professor Franz Haymann (1874–1947) and Ruth Therese Hensel, daughter of mathematician Kurt Hensel. He was a great-great-grandson of acclaimed composer Fanny Mendelssohn. Because of his Jewish heritage, he left Germany, then under Nazi rule, alone by train in 1938. He continued his schooling at Gordonstoun School, and later at St John's College, Cambridge under John Edensor Littlewood and his doctoral advisor Mary Cartwright. He taught at King's College, Newcastle, and the University of Exeter.
In 1947, he married Margaret Riley Crann after they met at a Quaker meeting. Together, they founded the British Mathematical Olympiad. The pair had three daughters, including the peace activist Carolyn Hayman and the filmmaker Sheila Hayman.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2544677. VIAF identifies the subject as 109443053. The Library of Congress control number is n50034042. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1926, 2020, 1874 and 1947.
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This entry incorporates text from “Walter Hayman” 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.