I'm looking for the birth and death years for R. R. Webb. He was
mathematics study coach at Cambridge and worked in part with Hardy. He
was never officially tied to Cambridge, but worked closely with
Cambridge mathematicians for many years.

He lived from 9 July 1850 to 29 July 1936.

Some of his papers are in St. John's College Library, catalogued as:

"Webb, Robert Rumsey (1850-1936), mathematician, 1 box"

This information is also available on the Historical Manuscripts
Commission website:

"Webb, Robert Rumsey (1850-1936) mathematician"
http://www.hmc.gov.uk/nra/searches/PIdocs.asp?P=161093
	

This is confirmed by a Royal Astronomical Society document which gives
more precise dates:

1850.07.09  to  1936.07.29
http://www.ras.org.uk/html/obits/obit61.pdf

(Adobe Acrobat Reader required to read pdf document.)

Also see this page about W.B. Morton's notebooks, which include notes
from Webb's lectures:
http://libserv.aip.org:81/ipac20/ipac.jsp?uri=full=3100001@!24940@!0

Here he is referred to as both RR Webb and Robert Rumsey Webb, which
led me to the other websites!

It seems he was born in Monmouth:
http://www.btinternet.com/~wonr/webb/f_mon.htm

I hope this helps, but please do ask for clarification if you have a
query, or if a link fails to work.

Best Wishes - Leli


Successful searches:

"RR Webb" Cambridge
://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22r+r+webb%22++cambridge&btnG=Search&meta=

"Webb Robert Rumsey"
://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22webb+robert+rumsey%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

"Robert Rumsey Webb"
://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22robert+rumsey+webb%22&btnG=Search&meta=

Wow. I'm amazed. I thought I had done a pretty good job of scouring
Google for this one. Excellent researcher!

Fellow researchers may wish to read this:
"While at Winchester Hardy won an open scholarship to Trinity College,
Cambridge, which he entered in 1896. At Cambridge Hardy was assigned
to the most famous coach R R Webb. He quickly realised that the point
of the training was simply to achieve the best possible marks in the
examinations by learning all the tricks of the trade. He was shocked
to discover that Webb was not interested in the subject of
mathematics, only in the tricks of examinations."
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Hardy.html
answerfinder-ga

Thank-you for your kind words!

Not all research skills - luck played a part.

Thanks again - Leli