Timothy Poston (19 June 1945 – 22 August 2017) was an English mathematician and polymath best known for his work on catastrophe theory. His early childhood was in Moscow where his father served in the British Embassy for 18 months. When his father moved back to the UK to work for the BBC, Tim went to Datchworth primary school. Later his father ran The Near East Broadcasting Station Sharq al-Adna; his mother taught her children by PNEU until Tim went to The Junior School in Nicosia as a boarder. After the Suez débâcle, his father returned to the UK to train as a parson, and the family lived in Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Dorset. Tim boarded at the Perse school to age 15 and then to Dauntsey's. From 1964 to 1967 he was an undergraduate at the University of Hull, obtaining a 1st Class BSc. (Sp