Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Let G be a soluble group of derived length 3. We show in this paper that if G acts as an automorphism group on a compact Riemann surface of genus g ≠ 3,5,6,10 then it has at most 24(g — 1) elements. Moreover, given a positive integer n we show the existence of a Riemann surface of genus g = n4 + 1 that admits such a group of automorphisms of order 24(g — 1), whilst a surface of specified genus can admit such a group of automorphisms of order 48(g — 1), 40(g — 1), 30(g — 1) and 36(g — 1) respectively.