The Second Constitution

When the Committee met on the 7th of November 1930, they were in for a very long meeting. The newly appointed Secretary, H. S. Ruse, pointed out that the Society’s rules needed revision. With the exception of certain rules, the constitution had not been revised at all since the foundation of the Society, and it was severely outdated. The Society’s publications were, for instance, not mentioned at all.17 _{Ruse also ex-}

plained that the Society risked losing the support from the schoolteachers because of the rising standard of the Proceedings.18 _{The discussion that followed was unusually}

long, stretching the meeting to a full two hours.19 _{In the end, it was resolved to ap-}

point a sub-committee to draw up a proposal for a new constitution. The Committee also decided that yet another effort should be made to expand the Notes. The name

16_{This was Volume 25, that appeared in January 1930.}

17_{Copson had also mentioned this in his letter to Turnbull in 1927 [18].}

18_{The minutes actually say ‘publications’, but rising standard was not an issue for theNotes. It had been published}

only three times since the discussions in 1927, once in 1929 and twice in 1930.

CHAPTER 4: THE ROAD TO RESEARCH

of the periodical was again a topic for discussion, and the sub-committee was asked to consider changing the name to Journal of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society, or similar.

This they did and they prepared a proposal for the next Committee meeting in Glas- gow in December. This proposal incorporated the Society’s publications, the updated setup of the Committee, and also the Society’s library.20 _{Their suggestions were for}

the most part accepted, but any official decision-making was postponed for the next meeting.21 _{The discussion turned to the name of theNotes. Professor MacRobert made}

his case once again for the Journal of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society. This time, however, he was met with strong opposition from some of the other members. The minutes do not go into detail, but the main objection appears to have been a potential confusion with the Journal of the London Mathematical Society. This periodical was a rather different type of journal, closer in nature to the Proceedings than the Notes. It had not been an issue in 1927, possibly because the journal of the London society was so new then; it was only published for the first time in 1926. Other names were therefore suggested, such asBulletin of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society, Report of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society andMathematical Notices. As with the discussion on the rest of the rules, the matter was adjourned.

The next meeting took place on the 16th of January 1931 in Edinburgh. The new constitution was accepted, with the exception of the rules relating to the Notes. Pro- fessor MacRobert did not believe that the similarity in name and not in content of the

Journal of the LMS and the potential Journal of the EMS would be a problem, and he expressed as much.

Prof. MacRobert stated that the objections of certain of the other members to the name Journal of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society seemed to him absurd, since Scottish members would not feel the same objection to copying the London Mathematical Society as English members [90, 16 Jan. 1931].22

Professor Whittaker disagreed with this, and pointed out that the publications of the LMS were ‘very widely read’. Not having reached a conclusion, the discussion on 20_{It also contained the requirement that papers written by non-members would only be considered when communicated}

by a member.

21_{This was presumably due to low attendance at the meeting.}

22_{It is perhaps unexpected that MacRobert would say that copying the London Mathematical Society was a good}

idea, considering Professor Turnbull’s cautious warnings to Copson in 1927. One might, however, argue that there was a distinction. Copson had claimed that the EMS was a replica of the LMS, whereas MacRobert here only wished to re-use a name. There is no evidence that MacRobert had any objection to copying the PLMS either, as long as the teachers were given another alternative.

the name was adjourned for the next meeting in February.

It is very unusual for a sentence such as ‘The objections [. . . ] seemed to him ab- surd’ to enter the usually so dispassionate minutes, even if it was a direct quote. Any discussion would usually be toned down several notches for the minutes. When the phrase appears here, it could mean there was an unusually heated debate going on. The Secretary was, however, rather new, and perhaps not quite accustomed to the style of minute-taking. It will be seen shortly that he had not fully understood the severity of this debate, which he could hardly have avoided doing had there been a proper argument going on. That said, the discussion was surely lively enough, though perhaps not quite as lively as the minutes might indicate.