John Henry Gaddum, 1900-1965

Abstract

John Henry Gaddum was born on 31 March 1900 in Hale, Cheshire, the eldest child of Henry Edwin Gaddum and Phyllis Mary née Barratt. He had three brothers and two sisters. His father was a silk importer whose main energies were devoted to charitable work in Manchester, where he was a Justice of the Peace, and Chairman of many of the leading charitable committees. He got them all together in a house which was later called Gaddum House. Manchester University honoured him by giving him an honorary M.A. About his father, Gaddum wrote: ‘As the eldest I got more help from him than did the rest of the family. He made me fond of riding and natural history, and taught me to use my hands. He constructed a large sundial which was also a summer house, and which told the correct time to within about a minute at all times of the year—making due allowance for the apparent irregularities of the sun at different times of the year. It also told the day of the year. He was fond of sketching and taught me to draw— but not very successfully. He made me fond of long walks in Wales and Switzerland, and of swimming and sailing.’ John Gaddum’s maternal grandfather, Alfred Barratt, was, as Gaddum wrote, a clever man. He went from Rugby to Balliol, Oxford, under Jowett, and there achieved what was then a record in examinations: a double first in Moderations followed by First Class in Classics, Mathematics and Modern History. He wrote two books on philosophy and died young (35). A first cousin of Gaddum’s mother was Sir Samuel Hoare, later Lord Templewood, at one time Foreign Secretary and Ambassador to Spain. Another first cousin of his mother was Dick Acland, who was Bishop of Bombay and by whom he was married. A first cousin of his father, Grace Joynson, married William Hicks, who became Lord Brentford and who was Home Secretary at the time of the General Strike in 1926.