Hanna Neumann: a short cv

1914 Born 12 February 1914; christened Johanna von Caemmerer. Her father, a lecturer in History, died as one of the first casualties in the first month of the 1914–18 war. Her mother, geboren Jordan, lived until c. 1970

1932 Entered Humboldt University, Berlin, Easter 1932

1937 August 1937 passed Staatsexamen; moved to Gottingen¨ and began doctoral studies with Helmut Hasse 1938 Moved to Britain; married B. H. Neumann late that year; used the name Hanna Neumann ever after; lived in Rhiwbina, Cardiff 1939 Irene born August 1939 1940 As ‘enemy alien’ required to leave Cardiff June 1940: moved to Oxford; BHN interned a week later, and joined the army after a few months

1940 Peter born December 1940 [Irene, Peter, caravan, farmyard, April 1943]

1941 Matriculated through Society of Oxford Home-Students (now St Anne’s College) at Oxford University, 31 October 1941 1943 DPhil thesis ‘On Free Products of Groups’ submitted 12 June 1943 (Olga Taussky supervised); returned to Rhiwbina 28 July 1943 1943 Barbara born November 1943 1944 Successful DPhil viva 25 May 1944 (Examiners P.Hall, J. H. C. Whitehead, both FRS)

1946 Walter born January 1946 [Barbara and Walter, July 1949]

1946 Moved to Hull Summer 1946; Assistant Lecturer at University College Hull from September 1946 1948 September: promoted to tenured lectureship at University College, Hull; also BHN became Lecturer at University of Manchester—returned home to Hull alternate weekends and university vacations

1951 Daniel born April 1951 [Hanna with Daniel, September 1951]

1954 30 November 1954 ‘Permission to supplicate for DSc.’; degree conferred 20 January 1955 1955 Promoted to Senior Lectureship in the University of Hull 1958 Moved as Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer to Manchester College of Science and Technology 1963 Joined BHN (who had emigrated in 1962) as Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, ANU, Canberra; very soon became Professor of Pure Mathematics in the School of General Studies of the ANU. 1967 Monograph Varieties of Groups published. (Russian translation 1969) 1969 Elected Fellow of the Australian Academy 1971 Died suddenly in Canada, 14 November 1971, while on a lecture tour. References

[1] HANNA NEUMANN, ‘On the elimination rule’, J. London Math. Soc. 15 (1940), 281–293.

[2] HANNA NEUMANN, ‘Generalized free products with amalgamated subgroups’, Amer. J. Math., 70 (1948), 590–625.

[3] HANNA NEUMANN, ‘Generalized free products with amalgamated subgroups. II’, Amer. J. Math., 71 (1949), 491–540.

[4] GRAHAM HIGMAN,B.H.NEUMANN and HANNA NEUMANN, ‘Embedding theorems for groups’, J. London Math. Soc., 24 (1949) 247–254.

[5] B. H. NEUMANN and HANNA NEUMANN, ‘A remark on generalized free products’ J. London Math. Soc., 25 (1950), 202–204.

[6] HANNA NEUMANN, ‘Generalized free sums of cyclical groups’, Amer. J. Math., 72 (1950), 671– 685.

[7] B. H. NEUMANN and HANNA NEUMANN, ‘Zwei Klassen charakteristischer Untergruppen und ihre Faktorgruppen’, Math. Nachrichten, 4 (1951), 106–125.

[8] HANNA NEUMANN, ‘On an amalgam of abelian groups’, J. London Math. Soc., 26 (1951), 228–232.

[9] B. H. NEUMANN and HANNA NEUMANN, ‘Extending partial endomorphisms of groups’ Proc. Lon- don Math. Soc. (3), 2 (1952), 337–348.

[10] B. H. NEUMANN and HANNA NEUMANN, ‘On a class of abelian groups’, Archiv Math. (Basel), 4 (1953), 79–85.

[11] B. H. NEUMANN and HANNA NEUMANN, ‘A contribution to the embedding theory of group amal- gams’, Proc. London Math. Soc. (3), 3 (1953), 243–256.

[12] B. H. NEUMANN and HANNA NEUMANN, ‘Partial endomorphisms of finite groups’, J. London Math. Soc., 29 (1954), 434–440.

[13] HANNA NEUMANN, ‘On some finite non-desarguesian planes’, Archiv Math. (Basel), 6 (1954), 36–40.

[14] HANNA NEUMANN, ‘On varieties of groups and their associated near-rings’, Math. Zeitschrift, 65 (1956), 36–69.

[15] HANNA NEUMANN, ‘On the intersection of finitely generated free groups’, Publ. Math. Debrecen, 4 (1956), 186–189.

[16] HANNA NEUMANN, ‘On the intersection of finitely generated free groups. Addendum’, Publ. Math. Debrecen, 5 (1957), 128.

[17] B. H. NEUMANN and HANNA NEUMANN, ‘Embedding theorems for groups’, J. London Math. Soc., 34 (1959), 465–479.

[18] HANNA NEUMANNand JAMES WIEGOLD, ‘Linked products and linked embeddings of groups’, Math. Zeitschrift, 73 (1960), 1–19.

[19] B. H. NEUMANN and HANNA NEUMANN, ‘On linked products of groups’, Acta Sci. Math. Szeged, 21 (1960), 197–205.

[20] HANNA NEUMANN, ‘On a question of Kertesz’,´ Publ. Math. Debrecen, 8 (1961), 75–78.

[21] HANNA NEUMANN, ‘On a theorem of Auslander and Lyndon’, Archiv Math. (Basel), 13 (1962), 1–3. [22] B. H. NEUMANN,HANNA NEUMANN and PETER M.NEUMANN, ‘Wreath products and varieties of groups’, Math. Zeitschrift, 80 (1962), 44–62.

[23] HANNA NEUMANN, ‘Note on a theorem by Gaschutz’,¨ J. f. d. reine u. angew. Math., 212 (1963), 109–112.

[24] HANNA NEUMANN, ‘On a theorem of Auslander and Lyndon: A correction’, Archiv Math. (Basel), 14 (1963), 367–368.

[25] GILBERT BAUMSLAG,B.H.NEUMANN,HANNA NEUMANN and PETER M.NEUMANN, ‘On varieties generated by a finitely generated group’, Math. Zeitschrift, 86 (1964), 93–122.

[26] HANNA NEUMANN, ‘Varieties of groups’ in Proc. Internat. Conf. Theory of Groups (Canberra, 1965), Gordon and Breach, New York 1967, pp. 251–259.

[27] HANNA NEUMANN, Varieties of groups. Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., New York 1967: pp. x + 192.

[28] X. NE˘IMAN, Mnogoobraziya grupp. A supplemented Russian translation of Varieties of Groups by A. L. Smelˇ 0kin, Izdat. “Mir”, Moscow 1969: pp. 264.

[29] I. M. S. DEY and HANNA NEUMANN, ‘The Hopf property of free products’, Math. Zeitschrift, 117 (1970), 325–339.

[30] B. H. NEUMANN and HANNA NEUMANN, Selected works of B. H. Neumann and Hanna Neumann, (Six volumes), Charles Babbage Research Centre, Winnipeg, Canada, 1988: pp. lii + 1371. ISBN: 0-919611-18-4.

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Obituary: M. F. NEWMAN and G. E. WALL, ‘Hanna Neumann’ J. Australian Math. Soc., 17 (1974), 1–28.

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Extracts from HN’s autobiographical note (handwritten) for Australian Academy, 28 July 1967:

The latter half of 1933, and 1934, are best dealt with briefly. It was the time when often, on being given the alarm, we would enlist at a moment’s notice all fellow students we could get hold of to fill a lecture room that threatened to be filled by storm troopers in mufti who, posing as students, would stage protests, culminating in violence, against Jewish university teachers. It was the time when, on and off, we would realize that a familiar face was no longer around, a fellow student had disappeared not to be seen again. It was then that the doors of the lecture rooms where Issai Schur lectured were manned by mathematics students with the job to screen all comers by means of a simple mathematical question put at the door, in an attempt to keep Schur safe from impostor storm troopers. Eventually, of course, force prevailed; in due course no Jew could teach any longer, no student with Jewish blood could be admitted (I still have my “Ahnenpass” [certificate of ancestry—PMN] and various certificates for compulsory political schooling duly attended). It was about that time that I read in the London Times (still available, but it was not healthy to be seen reading it) that “the German universities have given in without a fight”. I remember I did not like that particular piece of generalization

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Bernhard and I were married on Dec. 22, 1938, at Cardiff, but only when his parents had arrived in England were we able to let people know and to set up house together at Cardiff where he was then an Assistant Lecturer. Due to the invasion scare, we had to leave the coastal zone (as “enemy aliens”) early in the war. Bernhard’s parents joined a relative in London, we moved to Oxford into ‘digs’. Within a week of our arrival Bernhard was interned and, a few months later, released into the British army. I had the second child about that time; two young children and no husband left me with time for work in the evenings; Oxford university, by a generous offer that waived fees for refugee students who had interrupted their course through leaving their country, and St Anne’s College (then still the ‘Society of Oxford Home Students’, and it was that name that encouraged me to go ahead) made it possible for me to complete my degree.

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So it was, that the thesis was mainly written inside a caravan, by candle light, and typed on a card table between the caravan and a haystack, weather permitting.

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[...]. So I started, in Hull, encouraged and helped by Bernhard, who took it as a matter of course that both, our work and our children, were joint and shared responsibilities. It was then, at last, that we started working together.

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Hanna Neumann, DPhil, DSc, FAA in 1969

ΠMN: Queen’s, Oxford: October 2015