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George Udny Yule
Times obituary
STUDIES IN STATISTICS
Mr. George Udny Yule, C.B.E., F.R.S., whose death at Cambridge on Tuesday was briefly reported yesterday, was one of the several members of a distinguished family to bear the name.
He was the son of Sir George Yule, K.C.S.I., and the nephew of Sir Henry Yule, whose edition of Marco Polo's Travels is a standard work. Born in 1871 and educated at Winchester and University College, London, he spent a year researching electric waves under Hertz at Bonn, but his scientific career proper began in 1893 when he was offered a lecturer position at University College by Karl Pearson, who was founding the school of mathematical statistics, which was to become the inspiration of statisticians all over the world. During the next five years, Yule published some fundamental work on the theory of association and correlation. The lectures given from 1902 to 1909 were published in 1911 as An Introduction to the Theory of Statistics (now in its fourteenth edition), perhaps the best-known general textbook on the subject.
With the exception of an interval of four years in the contracts department of the Board of Trade during the 1914-18 war, which led to his creation as a C.B.E., Yule spent the rest of his career from 1912 onwards at Cambridge, where he became a University Reader in Statistics and a Fellow of St. John's College. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1921 and President of the Royal Statistical Society in 1925. During this period, his major contributions to statistics were his pioneering studies in the theory of time series.
Yuie held his Fellowship at St. John's until his death, and in the year following his election, he became Director of Natural Sciences in the college. This office, which he held for 12 years, brought him into contact with the large number of men reading natural sciences, and he was admirably fitted for it by his broad scientific interests and his inquiring mind. After his resignation in 1931 from his university readership, he held a college lectureship in statistics until 1940. He lived in his college rooms until failing health made that no longer possible, and his varied activities and sociable nature made him one of the best-known and best-loved figures in the college.
Though in some respects a strong conservative, he was always at home in the company of young people and was a keen supporter of the boys' club in London, then the College Mission. His active mind was always finding new outlets. He took up motoring comparatively late in life. This led to an interest in flying and, not content with being piloted by others, he obtained his own pilot's license at about the age of 60. The investigations which resulted in The Statistical Study of Literary Vocabulary led on to bibliographical interests, and he formed a valuable collection, which he later gave to the college library, of some 50 printed editions (with four manuscripts) of the Imitatio Christi by Thomas à Kempis, of which he had long been fond. Only failing strength prevented the completion of a concordance of the Psalms in English, which characteristically took account of all the English versions.
STUDIES IN STATISTICS
Mr. George Udny Yule, C.B.E., F.R.S., whose death at Cambridge on Tuesday was briefly reported yesterday, was one of the several members of a distinguished family to bear the name.
He was the son of Sir George Yule, K.C.S.I., and the nephew of Sir Henry Yule, whose edition of Marco Polo's Travels is a standard work. Born in 1871 and educated at Winchester and University College, London, he spent a year researching electric waves under Hertz at Bonn, but his scientific career proper began in 1893 when he was offered a lecturer position at University College by Karl Pearson, who was founding the school of mathematical statistics, which was to become the inspiration of statisticians all over the world. During the next five years, Yule published some fundamental work on the theory of association and correlation. The lectures given from 1902 to 1909 were published in 1911 as An Introduction to the Theory of Statistics (now in its fourteenth edition), perhaps the best-known general textbook on the subject.
With the exception of an interval of four years in the contracts department of the Board of Trade during the 1914-18 war, which led to his creation as a C.B.E., Yule spent the rest of his career from 1912 onwards at Cambridge, where he became a University Reader in Statistics and a Fellow of St. John's College. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1921 and President of the Royal Statistical Society in 1925. During this period, his major contributions to statistics were his pioneering studies in the theory of time series.
Yuie held his Fellowship at St. John's until his death, and in the year following his election, he became Director of Natural Sciences in the college. This office, which he held for 12 years, brought him into contact with the large number of men reading natural sciences, and he was admirably fitted for it by his broad scientific interests and his inquiring mind. After his resignation in 1931 from his university readership, he held a college lectureship in statistics until 1940. He lived in his college rooms until failing health made that no longer possible, and his varied activities and sociable nature made him one of the best-known and best-loved figures in the college.
Though in some respects a strong conservative, he was always at home in the company of young people and was a keen supporter of the boys' club in London, then the College Mission. His active mind was always finding new outlets. He took up motoring comparatively late in life. This led to an interest in flying and, not content with being piloted by others, he obtained his own pilot's license at about the age of 60. The investigations which resulted in The Statistical Study of Literary Vocabulary led on to bibliographical interests, and he formed a valuable collection, which he later gave to the college library, of some 50 printed editions (with four manuscripts) of the Imitatio Christi by Thomas à Kempis, of which he had long been fond. Only failing strength prevented the completion of a concordance of the Psalms in English, which characteristically took account of all the English versions.
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