• "J. H. C. Whitehead was a rather interesting character. He raised pigs."
source: Algebraic Topology (page 36)
• Professor Michael Atiyah shares some personal recollections on Whitehead and his pigs at Oxford Mathematics Interviews. At the 2 minute mark Atiyah mentions the photograph of Whitehead with a pig: "You wouldn't have thought of him as a mathematician".
• Henry Whitehead, whose school of topology attracted scholars from around the world, was a keen pig farmer: he claimed to derive mathematical inspiration by scratching his pigs’ backs for an hour every afternoon.
source: Oxford Mathematical Institute Spring Newsletter