Bateman was born in
Manchester, England, on 29 May 1882. He first gained an interest in mathematics during his time at
Manchester Grammar School. In his final year, he won a scholarship to
Trinity College, Cambridge. Bateman studied with coach
Robert Alfred Herman to prepare for the
Cambridge Mathematical Tripos. He distinguished himself in 1903 as
Senior Wrangler (tied with P.E. Marrack) and by winning the
Smith's Prize (1905). His first paper, "The determination of curves satisfying given conditions", was published when he was still an undergraduate student. He studied in Göttingen and Paris, and taught at the University of Liverpool and University of Manchester. After moving to the US in 1910, he taught at
Bryn Mawr College and then
Johns Hopkins University. There, working with
Frank Morley in geometry, he achieved his Ph.D., prior to which he had already published more than 60 papers, including some of his celebrated papers. In 1917, he took up his permanent position at the
California Institute of Technology, which was then known as the "Throop Polytechnic Institute".
Eric Temple Bell says, "Like his contemporaries and immediate predecessors among Cambridge mathematicians of the first decade of this century [1901–1910]... Bateman was thoroughly trained in both
pure analysis and
mathematical physics, and retained an equal interest in both throughout his scientific career."
Theodore von Kármán was called in as an advisor for a projected aeronautics laboratory at Caltech and later gave this appraisal of Bateman: Harry Bateman married Ethel Horner in 1912 and had a son named Harry Graham, who died as a child. Later, the couple adopted a daughter named Joan Margaret. He died on his way to New York in 1946 of
coronary thrombosis. ==Scientific contributions==