the Royal Society was written by George Frederick James Temple in November 1956. He received published obituaries from Alexander Aitken, Herbert Dingle, Gerald James Whitrow, and William Hunter McCrea, among others. His house was owned by the University of Edinburgh and was demolished in the 1960s to expand the campus and now holds the William Robertson Building. Personal life In 1901, while at Cambridge, he married Mary Ferguson Macnaghten Boyd, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister and granddaughter of Thomas Jamieson Boyd. They had five children, two daughters and three sons including the mathematician John Macnaghten Whittaker (1905–1984). His elder daughter, Beatrice, married Edward Taylor Copson, who would later become Professor of Mathematics at the University of St Andrews. George Frederick James Temple noted that Whittaker's home in Edinburgh was "a great centre of social and intellectual activity where liberal hospitality was dispensed to students of all ages", and went on to note that Whittaker had a happy home life and was well loved by his family. Whittaker kept a piano in his home which he did not know how to play, but enjoyed listening to friends play when they would come to visit. Whittaker was also known to take a personal interest in his students and would invite them to social gatherings at his house. He also continued to keep track of his Honours students over the years. His home was also the location of many unofficial interviews that would have a large impact on a student's future career. After his death, William Hunter McCrea described Whittaker as having a "quick wit" with an "ever-present sense of humour" and being "the most unselfish of men with a delicate sense of what would give help or pleasure to others". He notes that Whittaker had a "vast number of friends" and that he "never missed an opportunity to do or say something on behalf of any one of them". Legacy In addition to his textbooks and other works, several of which remain in print, Whittaker is remembered for his research in automorphic functions, numerical analysis, harmonic analysis, and general relativity. He has several theorems and functions named in his honour. In June 1958, two years after his death, an entire issue of the Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society was dedicated to his life and works. The volume included an article by Robert Alexander Rankin on Whittaker's work on automorphic functions,