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William Edward Thrift 1901-1929

William Edward Thrift 1901-1929William Edward Thrift was born on 28th February 1870 in Halifax, Yorkshire. He moved to Dublin during his childhood as his father was an officer in the Inland Revenue. He entered Trinity College, aged 19, in 1889. In his Junior Freshman year (1890), he earned a scholarship in mathematics. He graduated BA in 1893, top of his class, with gold medals in mathematics and experimental science. He was elected a Fellow in 1896. Thrift was assistant to his predecessor, George Francis Fitzgerald. After Fitzgerald’s early death, Thrift was appointed 16th Erasmus Smith’s Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy, serving from 1901 to 1929.

Though the new Physical Laboratory facilities designed by Fitzgerald were completed in 1906, research stagnated during Thrift’s tenure. Ernest Walton recalled that the lectures given by the department were a decade out of date. While he had a distinguished undergraduate career, his strengths were in administration and in sports rather than academic research. Thrift served as Vice-Provost from 1935-7 and as Provost from 1937-42.  He was a director of Trinity’s social services company, a charity, which acquired property to house the poor; he was the first chairman of the Dublin University Central Athletic Committee (1919-37) after its revival; he was an accomplished cyclist, winning many races; he served as the TD for the constituency of Dublin University (1922-37) until university representation was abolished in 1937. He was a council member for the Royal Dublin Society (1902-42). He died on 23rd April 1942.

Sources

  1. TCD (2021), William Edward Thrift, TCD, https://www.tcd.ie/Provost/history/former-Provosts/we_thrift.php
  2. Lawrence William White, Thrift, William Edward, Dictionary of Irish Biography, https://www.dib.ie/biography/thrift-william-edward-a8549
  3. Erich Finch (2016), Three Centuries of Physics in Trinity College Dublin, Living Edition
  4. Image of William Edward Thrift, By Leo Whelan - Oil on canvas, Anne Crookshank and David Webb, Paintings and Sculptures in Trinity College Dublin (Dublin, 1990), p. 132.