Gordon Douglas James, 1945–2020

Abstract

It is said that every generation of mathematicians rewrites the representation theory of the symmetric groups in their own words. Gordon James literally wrote the book on the representation theory of the symmetric groups for mathematicians in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century, putting a particular focus on representations over finite fields. He proved many of the foundational results in the field. He was one of the first to realise, and to capitalise on, the fundamental connections between the symmetric groups, the finite general linear groups, the Iwahori-Hecke algebras and the quantised Schur algebras. The James Conjecture [34] was a central focus of research in representation theory for 30 years, before finally being shown to be false 〈58〉. (Citations of the form [A] refer to Gordon James' papers, with other papers in the literature being cited as 〈B〉.)In writing this article I reached out to many colleagues. With friends, family and students alike, a common theme was the description of Gordon as being patient and kind, with many saying that he had a mischievous sense of humour. He was an incredibly sharp and gifted mathematician who knew everything there was to know about the symmetric groups and their representation theory, and he played a pivotal role in developing much of this theory. EARLY LIFEGordon was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 31 December 1945, and he grew up in Polegate, near Eastbourne. Gordon's father, Douglas, was an accountant. His mother, Lily (who was known as Toni), was the head of the language department at Hailsham School in Sussex. Toni was fluent in French and German and she picked up new languages easily -a skill that skipped a generation with Gordon. Like his mother, Gordon was an excellent teacher. From a young age, Gordon was identified as being talented at 'arithmetic', so his parents sent him to Eastbourne College as a day student for secondary school from 1959 to 1963. Like many