The Mathematician

HUBERT WILLIAM CHARLES McLAUGHLIN OBE (1865-1944) was born at Arrah, Bengal. He and his brother Donal were sent to Cheltenham College as boarders by their father Judge Frederick McLaughlin.

They were put in the care of a guardian, George Pardoe (1812-84), of Nash Court in the parish of Burford, where the rector was the boys' grandfather, the Very Rev. Hubert McLaughlin. Perhaps so that he could keep an eye on his wards, Pardoe moved about 1880 to The Priory on the High Street in Cheltenham, his wife's birthplace. The Priory was for a time one of Cheltenham College's Private Boarding Houses, large private homes into which a master took a few boys.

Hubert, who played in the Boyne House rugby XV, won the Classical Department's Mathematical Silver Medal in 1882. The rim is engraved H. W. McLaughlin; the reverse bears a view of Cheltenham College and its name.

The next year he went on a mathematical scholarship to Christ's College, Cambridge, graduating as 33rd Wrangler in 1886. Hubert became an assistant master at Lancing College. He also taught at Sedbergh School, Lichfield Grammar School, and at Bristol University.

In 1903 his guardian's widow, Elizabeth Mary Pardoe, died. As the executor of her will, Hubert succeeded in a lawsuit against the Attorney-General, who contested her bequests for Bell-ringing in Commemoration of the Restoration of the Monarchy, for Tombstones for Pensioners, and for the Pardoe Almshouse Charity at Cleeton St. Mary.

In 1906 Hubert married Ida Evelyn Powell, daughter of Rev. Edward Henry Powell, Vicar of Hewish Somerset. They had two daughters and a son. During World War I Hubert worked in the Ministry of Munitions and was rewarded with Membership of the Order of the British Empire. He died at Ilkley, Yorkshire, in 1944.

Hubert's brother, DONAL McLAUGHLIN, born 1867, was a sickly lad who died at the age of 17, in Minnesota. (Two step-brothers later migrated to Minneapolis, Minnesota — what attracted them?)

Frederick and Harriet's youngest son, CHARLES WALTER McLAUGHLIN (1872-1948) was born in India. He obtained a BA degree at Bishop Hatfield's Hall, a college of Durham University. For two years starting in 1897, Charles served in the Oxford Mission to India, which owned an imposing building in the student quarter of the then capital, Calcutta.

In 1891 Charles stayed at the Vicarage of his uncle the Rev. Alfred McLaughlin, in Bothamstall, Nottinghamshire. Charles became a curate at St. Luke in London's Victoria Docks in 1895. Four years later, as Vicar of St. Leonards, Newark on-Trent, Nottingham, he married Lucy Caroline Steele (born 1868), daughter of John Steele, MD, Medical Superintendent of Guy's Hospital. By 1903 he had become Vicar of Barnet Vale, and was later Vicar of Totteridge, Buckinghamshire.

© 2006 G. Harry McLaughlin.
Reproduction or transmission, in whole or in part, for other than personal use is prohibited without advance permission from Dr. G. H. McLaughlin.