Sir Richard Vynne Southwell, FRS[1] (2 July 1888 – 9 December 1970) was a British mathematician who specialised in applied mechanics as an engineering science academic.
[4][5] Richard Southwell was educated at Norwich School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where in 1912 he achieved first class degree results in both the mathematical and mechanical science tripos.
After World War I, he was head of the Aerodynamics and Structures Divisions at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough.
He became a member of a number of UK governmental technical committees, including for the Air Ministry, at the time when the R100 and R101 airships were being conceived.
As a scientist, Southwell developed relaxation methods for solving partial differential equations in engineering and theoretical physics during the 1930 and the 1940s.