Note 281 — Chapter III · THE UNIVERSITY AS A DEGREE-GIVING BODY
Reading edition
It has been said that senior wranglers are hidden in country rectories and are never heard of again. In a hundred and sixty years (1747-1906) there have been eight senior wranglers who could be placed in the first rank as mathematicians and physicists:
Herschell 1813 Airy 1823 Stokes 1841 Cayley 1842 Adams 1843 Todhunter 1848 Routh 1854 Rayleigh 1865
Paley, in 1763, was the first distinguished senior wrangler. On the other hand Colenso Whewell and Lord Kelvin were second wranglers, so was the geometrician Sylvester; de Morgan and Pritchard were fourth wranglers; the learned Porteous was tenth wrangler, Lord Manners (Lord Chancellor of Ireland) was 5th, Lord Ellenborough (Lord Chief Justice) 3rd, Lord Lyndhurst (Lord Chancellor) second.