Notes for: Joan Sybil Cushen
From Girton The Year 2014:
JOAN SYBIL REES 25 August 1924 - 28 August 2013
Joan Sybil Cushen was born in Portsmouth on 25 August 1924, the daughter of a teacher and a headmaster. She and her younger brother Ted grew up in Portsmouth. She won a scholarship to Portsmouth High School, and was evacuated with her school during the war. She went up to Girton to read Mathematics (with a scholarship) during the summer of 1943, starting, with a few others, a few months early so as to anticipate her nineteenth birthday in August 1942, and so avoid immediate conscription. She studied during the war, was involved in fire watching, and agreed to train as a teacher in order to be allowed to study for the full three years (but didn’t have to keep that promise because the war ended in time). She captained the University Women's Swimming team, and so had a full Cambridge Blue. A star student, Joan was awarded a number of prizes during her studies, and ultimately finished her degree with first class honours in the summer of 1946, but wasn’t able actually to ‘take’ her degree at that stage, because women were not yet members of the University; she took her MA later on, when they were admitted. After finishing her undergraduate study, she continued to do postgraduate work in Cambridge, moved briefly to Royal Holloway College but then was taken back to Girton by Bertha Jeffreys, as a Mathematics Teaching Fellow. Although she had to resign her fellowship when she married in 1952, she continued working for the College whilst she had her first three children, until she left Cambridge to move to Exeter where her husband was appointed Professor of Pure Mathematics. In Exeter Joan had a fourth child (she had four daughters in all), and after a while was herself appointed to the Mathematics Department, where she remained (ultimately as a Senior Lecturer) until her retirement. She was loved by her students, whom she treated as family. Supervisions were scheduled at her home, and students helped with her young children. She always had wonderful personal relationships with her students and was a popular colleague. Joan was an accomplished painter of watercolours, and became well known in Devon for her work, particularly after retirement, holding a number of exhibitions. A Catholic convert from 1978, with a very strong faith, she was very involved in her local church community, representing her church on the Devon Education Committee, and teaching both Mathematics and Art as a volunteer in a local Catholic primary school after retirement. Joan was very attached to Girton, which had been a home to her for several years; she had had no home life with her parents after the age of about 14 (her parents had been evacuated with her father's school). She was heavily involved with Girton’s centenary appeal. Joan was an energetic and very talented woman, and led a full and active life until the beginning of this year, when the illness started which led to her death. Professor Sarah Rees (1976)