Ernest William Barnes

Ernest William Barnes (1874 to 1953) was a British mathematician and scientist who later became a liberal theologian and bishop. Educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and Trinity College, Cambridge, he was bracketed Second Wrangler in 1896, won the first Smith's Prize in 1898 and was elected a fellow of Trinity. He lectured in mathematics at Cambridge, took the degree of ScD in 1907 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1909. His mathematical papers, written between 1897 and 1910, dealt with the gamma function and its generalisations, including the Barnes G-function, with integral functions and with hypergeometric functions, where his use of Mellin-type integrals gave rise to the Mellin-Barnes integrals. He tutored Srinivasa Ramanujan and began the research career of John Edensor Littlewood. In 1915 he left Cambridge to become Master of the Temple, and he was Bishop of Birmingham from 1924 until ill health forced his retirement, known for his modernist views and for conflict with the Anglo-Catholics in his diocese.