MacTutor
Maurice Kendall
Times obituary
Distinguished Contributions to Statistics
Sir Maurice Kendall, FBA, who died on March 29 at the age of 75, had a five-phase career in the theory and applications of statistics.
He had shown his mathematical ability only very late in his schooling in Derby, having previously been mainly interested in languages, but then won a scholarship to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he played "negative chess" with Jacob Bronowski and was named a Wrangler in 1929. He passed into the Civil Service in 1930 and there first met the problems of statistical inference.
A few years later, he was asked to revise Udny Yule's great introductory textbook and was led into statistical research. Soon he was one of five statisticians who were contemplating a cooperative treatise on the advanced theory of statistics, then developing fast.
When the Second World War came, the project was abandoned as the potential collaborators dispersed to wartime tasks. Kendall himself left the Ministry of Agriculture, where he was then in charge of statistics, to become a statistician at the British Chamber of Shipping. Later, he was also its Assistant General Manager. In wartime, this was an exacting post, but nevertheless he continued to work single-handedly on The Advanced Theory of Statistics, the first volume of which was published in 1943 and the second in 1946 by Charles Griffin & Co., who had been Yule's publishers.
It is hard to think of any other statistician with the energy and stamina to complete such a task in such conditions with such success. The treatise, much enlarged and revised, continues to be the leading work in its field.
By this time, Kendall had also made notable contributions to statistical theory in the fields of time series analysis and rank correlation methods, in each of which he published a monograph.
In 1949, he was invited to fill the newly established second Chair of Statistics at the London School of Economics, where he remained for twelve years and broke new ground. He organized and published a Dictionary of Statistical Terms with glossaries in several languages for the International Statistical Institute, which remains, in its latest edition, an invaluable guide. He organized and published the first comprehensive Bibliography of Statistical Literature, whose three volumes range from the earliest known work to 1958.
Other books and papers continued to appear, but in 1961 another change of direction coincided with his presidency of the Royal Statistical Society, which he also had as its Hon Secretary, helped to keep going during the war. He successively became Scientific Director, Managing Director, and Chairman of the computer consultancy company now called SCICON.
When he retired in 1972, he characteristically began a new phase as Director of the World Fertility Survey, the largest multinational sample survey ever undertaken, and there he remained until serious illness compelled his final retirement in 1980. His distinction in this post led to his being awarded the UN Peace Medal for his work on world population problems.
Kendall was above all a great systematizer and organizer, whether of his own and others' theoretical work or of the practical administrative tasks that scientific work requires. The Fellowship of the British Academy and the knighthood that he received in the 1970s recognized the importance of his work to the community of statisticians.
He was a model in other ways, shunning personal controversy, taking pains to be fair to the young as well as the old, knowing when and how to delegate responsibility, and writing always in a transparent, balanced prose reliably achieved by scientists.
By his late first wife, Sheila Lester, he had two sons and a daughter; by his second wife, formerly Ruth Whitfield, he had a son.
Distinguished Contributions to Statistics
Sir Maurice Kendall, FBA, who died on March 29 at the age of 75, had a five-phase career in the theory and applications of statistics.
He had shown his mathematical ability only very late in his schooling in Derby, having previously been mainly interested in languages, but then won a scholarship to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he played "negative chess" with Jacob Bronowski and was named a Wrangler in 1929. He passed into the Civil Service in 1930 and there first met the problems of statistical inference.
A few years later, he was asked to revise Udny Yule's great introductory textbook and was led into statistical research. Soon he was one of five statisticians who were contemplating a cooperative treatise on the advanced theory of statistics, then developing fast.
When the Second World War came, the project was abandoned as the potential collaborators dispersed to wartime tasks. Kendall himself left the Ministry of Agriculture, where he was then in charge of statistics, to become a statistician at the British Chamber of Shipping. Later, he was also its Assistant General Manager. In wartime, this was an exacting post, but nevertheless he continued to work single-handedly on The Advanced Theory of Statistics, the first volume of which was published in 1943 and the second in 1946 by Charles Griffin & Co., who had been Yule's publishers.
It is hard to think of any other statistician with the energy and stamina to complete such a task in such conditions with such success. The treatise, much enlarged and revised, continues to be the leading work in its field.
By this time, Kendall had also made notable contributions to statistical theory in the fields of time series analysis and rank correlation methods, in each of which he published a monograph.
In 1949, he was invited to fill the newly established second Chair of Statistics at the London School of Economics, where he remained for twelve years and broke new ground. He organized and published a Dictionary of Statistical Terms with glossaries in several languages for the International Statistical Institute, which remains, in its latest edition, an invaluable guide. He organized and published the first comprehensive Bibliography of Statistical Literature, whose three volumes range from the earliest known work to 1958.
Other books and papers continued to appear, but in 1961 another change of direction coincided with his presidency of the Royal Statistical Society, which he also had as its Hon Secretary, helped to keep going during the war. He successively became Scientific Director, Managing Director, and Chairman of the computer consultancy company now called SCICON.
When he retired in 1972, he characteristically began a new phase as Director of the World Fertility Survey, the largest multinational sample survey ever undertaken, and there he remained until serious illness compelled his final retirement in 1980. His distinction in this post led to his being awarded the UN Peace Medal for his work on world population problems.
Kendall was above all a great systematizer and organizer, whether of his own and others' theoretical work or of the practical administrative tasks that scientific work requires. The Fellowship of the British Academy and the knighthood that he received in the 1970s recognized the importance of his work to the community of statisticians.
He was a model in other ways, shunning personal controversy, taking pains to be fair to the young as well as the old, knowing when and how to delegate responsibility, and writing always in a transparent, balanced prose reliably achieved by scientists.
By his late first wife, Sheila Lester, he had two sons and a daughter; by his second wife, formerly Ruth Whitfield, he had a son.
You can see the original newsprint at THIS LINK
