Anne Cobbe

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Anne Philippa Cobbe (7 August 1920 – 15 December 1971) was a British mathematician at Oxford. Born in Sharnbrook, Bedfordshire, she was the youngest child of General Alexander Cobbe and Winifred Ada Bowen. She attended Downe House School and, although she first considered history, excelled in mathematics and won an exhibition to Somerville College, Oxford, in 1939. She finished her finals in 1942 and worked in operational research for the Royal Navy during World War II. After the war she returned to Oxford and earned an MA in 1946. Under the guidance of J. H. C. Whitehead at Lady Margaret Hall, she conducted research, publishing her first paper in 1951, and earned a DPhil in 1952 with the thesis Modern Algebraic Theories.

Cobbe became a lecturer at Lady Margaret Hall and published On the cohomology groups of a finite group in 1955. That year she returned to Somerville College as a fellow and tutor, where she enjoyed tutoring algebra—often with tea and biscuits—and looking after the college gardens. In 1957 she co-authored On Q-kernels with operators with Robert Leroy Taylor. Cobbe fell gravely ill in 1969 and, although she stepped back in 1971, she continued to support students until her death in Oxford on 15 December 1971, aged 51. She left her house to Somerville College for life tenure to philosopher Philippa Foot. Jane Bridge, a former pupil, succeeded her as mathematics tutor at Somerville. In 1972 Somerville established the Anne Cobbe Memorial Fund to support undergraduates studying mathematics, physics or engineering.