Professor Samuel Bruce McLaren (16 August 1876 – 13 August 1916) was an Australian mathematician and mathematical physicist. Joint winner of the Adams Prize in 1913 and Professor of Mathematics, University College, Reading from 1913 until his death during the Battle of the Somme. Early life McLaren was born in Yedo, near Tokyo, Japan, elder son of Rev. Samuel Gilfillan McLaren M.A. a Scottish missionary and later professor of sacred history and biblical literature at the Presbyterian Union Theological Seminary, and Marjory Millar McLaren née Bruce. The eldest child his siblings included Mary, Charles McLaren (psychiatrist) (later a missionary to Korea), and Marjory. In 1886, the family moved to Australia, where in 1889 his father became principal of Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne. Samuel McLaren was educated at Brighton Grammar School and Scotch College, Melbourne, where he was dux in mathematics in 1893. He gained a scholarship at Ormond College, University of Melbourne, and qualified for the Bachelor of Arts degree at the end of 1896 with first class final honours, and the final honours and Wyselaskie scholarships in mathematics. He also shared the Dixon scholarship in natural philosophy. One of his teachers at the University stated in 1903 that McLaren was by far the ablest student he had met during his twelve years' tenure of office, and one whose ability should be sufficient to place him in a very conspicuous position as an original thinker. Study in England Moving to England in 1897, McLaren attended Trinity College, Cambridge and was elected into a major scholarship in 1899, and was third wrangler in the same year. Taking part 2 of the mathematical tripos in his third year, he was placed in the second division of the first class. He was awarded an Isaac Newton studentship in astronomy and physical optics in 1901, and graduated M.A. in 1905. Not absorbed by mathematics alone he was interested in philosophy, literature and art, and played football tennis and boxed. Mathematical career McLaren was lecturer in mathematics at University College, Bristol 1904–06. Then from 1906 until 1913 obtained a similar position at the University of Birmingham. Between 1911 and 1913 he wrote some important papers on radiation which were published in the Philosophical Magazine, and he presented some of the more fundamental parts of his work to the mathematical congress at Cambridge in 1912. John William Nicholson, professor of mathematics in the University of London,