 William Show Burnside was born at Corcreevy House, near Fivemiletown, Tyrone, to William Smyth Burnside (1810–1884, Chancellor of Clogher Cathedral) and Anne Henderson (1808–1881).He studied mathematics under George Salmon at TCD (BA 1861, MA 1866, Fellowship 1871), and taught there until his retirement in 1917.He served as Erasmus Smiths's Professor of Mathematics for many decades (1879–1913), and co-authored the influential 1881 book "The Theory of Equations