Joint winner of the Adams Prize in 1913 and Professor of Mathematics, University College, Reading from 1913 until his death during the Battle of the Somme.
a Scottish missionary and later professor of sacred history and biblical literature at the Presbyterian Union Theological Seminary, and Marjory Millar McLaren née Bruce.
One of his teachers at the University stated in 1903 that McLaren was by far the ablest student he had met during his twelve years' tenure of office, and one whose ability should be sufficient to place him in a very conspicuous position as an original thinker.
[3] Moving to England in 1897, McLaren attended Trinity College, Cambridge and was elected into a major scholarship in 1899, and was third wrangler in the same year.
Between 1911 and 1913 he wrote some important papers on radiation which were published in the Philosophical Magazine, and he presented some of the more fundamental parts of his work to the mathematical congress at Cambridge in 1912.
John William Nicholson, professor of mathematics in the University of London, writing in 1918 said McLaren "undoubtedly anticipated Einstein and Abraham in their suggestion of a variable velocity of light, with the consequent expressions for the energy and momentum of the gravitational field".
[3] During the Battle of the Somme, on 26 July 1916, near Abbeville, he was shot in the head while endeavouring to clear a pit of bombs threatened by a nearby fire.
[1] Described as 'absolutely fearless and intrepid to an extent which made him both an anxiety to his brother officers and an inspiration to his men',[1] one of the tragedies of his death was that it occurred before he published his papers and consequently much of his work was lost.