John Crank

John Crank was a British mathematical physicist, born in Hindley in Lancashire, England, on 6 February 1916 and died on 3 October 2006. His father was a carpenter's pattern-maker. He studied at Manchester University from 1934 to 1938, where he took a BSc and an MSc as a student of Lawrence Bragg and Douglas Hartree, and was awarded a DSc there in 1953. He worked on ballistics during the Second World War and from 1945 to 1957 was a mathematical physicist at the Courtaulds Fundamental Research Laboratory. In 1957 he became the first Head of the Department of Mathematics at Brunel College in Acton, served two terms as its vice-principal, and retired in 1981 as professor emeritus. His main work was on the numerical solution of partial differential equations, especially heat-conduction problems, and he is best known for the Crank-Nicolson method for the heat equation, developed with Phyllis Nicolson. He was a keen gardener, and the John Crank Garden at Brunel University was established as a retirement gift to him.