The Society was founded in 1883 by a group of Edinburgh school teachers and academics, on the initiative of Alexander Yule Fraser FRSE and Andrew Jeffrey Gunion Barclay FRSE,^[1][2] both maths teachers at George Watson's College, and Cargill Gilston Knott, the assistant of Peter Guthrie Tait, professor of physics at the University of Edinburgh.^[3] The first president, elected at first meeting on 2 February 1883, was J.S. Mackay, the head mathematics master at the Edinburgh Academy.^[3]

The Society was founded at a time when mathematics societies were being created around the world, but it was unusual in being founded by school teachers rather than university lecturers.^[3] This was because, due to the very small number of mathematical academic positions in Scotland at the time, many skilled mathematics graduates chose to become schoolteachers instead.^[4] The fifty five founding members contained teachers, ministers and students, as well as a number of academics from the University of Cambridge.^[2] The proportion of teachers remained high compared to other mathematical societies, and by 1926 university members made up only one-third of the total members.^[5] However, the dominance of teachers in the numbers of the society declined towards the 1930s, and between 1930 and 1935 no papers were presented in the Proceedings by teachers.^[4] This was due to an increase in the number of academic positions available and the new requirement for teachers to undergo an additional year of vocational training.^[4]

The Edinburgh Mathematical Society is now mainly for academics.^[4]

The Society organises and funds meetings and other research events throughout Scotland. There are normally eight meetings a year, at which talks are presented by mathematicians.^[6]

Every four years it awards the Sir Edmund Whittaker Memorial Prize to an outstanding mathematician with a Scottish connection.^[7] The Society is a corporate member of the European Mathematical Society,^[8] and in 2008 it became a member of the Council for the Mathematical Sciences.^[6]

The society releases an academic journal, the Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society, published by Cambridge University Press (ISSN 0013–0915.)^[9] The Proceedings were first published in 1884, and are issued three times a year, covering a range of pure and applied mathematics subjects.^[6]

Between 1909 and 1961, the Society also published the Edinburgh Mathematical Notes, on the suggestion of George Alexander Gibson, a professor at the University of Glasgow, who wished to remove the more elementary or pedagogical articles from the Proceedings.^[10]

• List of Mathematical Societies

• Official website