Editorial

It is a great honour to succeed Benjamin Wardhaugh as editor of the British Journal for the History of Mathematics. Benjamin was the first editor of the Journal but he followed a series of ‘giants’ in the British Society for the History of Mathematics. In February 1986, during Ivor Grattan-Guinness’ Presidency, Ron Gowing initiated a Society Newsletter, which ‘will circulate on occasion...with items of interest to members. They [were] invited to lend success to this venture by sending to Dr Gowing items that appear[ed] to be relevant’; a template was provided for such submissions which upheld scholarly standards by requiring not only the item but also a reference or source. The twin features of serving the interests of Society members and recording their activities, and of upholding scholarly standards, have been central ever since. The Newsletter developed under Ron Gowing, Robin Wilson, John Fauvel, and June Barrow-Green, first into the Bulletin under Jackie Stedall and then Tony Mann, and then to the Journal under Benjamin. The early Newsletters reveal also other continuities in the Society, some of them concerns that we may think of as recent. Newsletter 28, Spring 1995, is notable for being John Fauvel’s first as editor but containing his outgoing Presidential Address. It reveals that 50 years ago, in 1973 the President, Gerald Whitrow, was considering issues of imperialism and Indian mathematics in his Address ‘Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1765-1832) and Hindu mathematics’. John took ‘equal opportunities’ for the theme of his own address, weighing up the historiographic tensions inherent in ‘the impact of feminism, anti-racism and other socio-political movements on historical scholarship’, but also the tensions of social inclusivity and scholarly standards brought by ‘technological developments which are ensuring that more people have opportunities to travel, to communicate electronically, and indeed to study and research history of mathematics’. A ‘Computer Section’ to ‘share knowledge, experiences and awareness of technological developments which help in the practice of research and in the promulgation of the history of mathematics’ had started the previous year and the Newsletter had grown from 3 to 73 pages and was becoming