Bernard Lewis Welch (1911–29 December 1989) was a British

statistician A statistician is a person who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, and statisticians may wor ...

and educator. He is known for creating

Welch's t-test In statistics, Welch's ''t''-test, or unequal variances ''t''-test, is a two-sample location test which is used to test the hypothesis that two populations have equal means. It is named for its creator, Bernard Lewis Welch, is an adaptation of ...

Biography

Born in 1911 in

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

County Durham County Durham ( ), officially simply Durham,UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. is a ceremonial county in North East England.North East Assembly �About North East E ...

, the youngest of four brothers, Welch was educated at the Bede School. He attended

Brasenose College, Oxford Brasenose College (BNC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It began as Brasenose Hall in the 13th century, before being founded as a college in 1509. The library and chapel were added in the mi ...

, where he was captain of the college

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

team for two years. Welch graduated, first class, in mathematics in 1933. Welch then attended

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

to study statistics. Pearson and Fisher were creating a centre at the College for studies in

statistical inference Statistical inference is the process of using data analysis to infer properties of an underlying probability distribution, distribution of probability.Upton, G., Cook, I. (2008) ''Oxford Dictionary of Statistics'', OUP. . Inferential statistical ...

and the use of statistical methods in biological science. Welch made his own distinctive theoretical contribution there and committed himself to furthering the explosive impact that statistics was beginning to make in industrial and agricultural fields. Welch was a founder of the Industrial and Agricultural Research Section of the

Royal Statistical Society The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is an established statistical society. It has three main roles: a British learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity which promotes statistics for the public good. ...

. He also became joint editor of the corresponding supplement to the journal of the Society (now Series B). Welch also served on the editorial board of ''

Biometrika ''Biometrika'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Oxford University Press for thBiometrika Trust The editor-in-chief is Paul Fearnhead (Lancaster University). The principal focus of this journal is theoretical statistics. It was es ...

''. He read a paper to the Society (Series A) in 1970 entitled 'Statistics—a vocational or a cultural study?' which still remains an open issue. From 1939 to 1946 Welch served as a Scientific Officer on the Ordnance Board of the

Ministry of Supply The Ministry of Supply (MoS) was a department of the UK government formed in 1939 to co-ordinate the supply of equipment to all three British armed forces, headed by the Minister of Supply. A separate ministry, however, was responsible for aircr ...

. He then returned to academic life by way of an appointment to a Readership in Statistics in the then Department of Mathematics in the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

. Leeds was then one of the few universities that had a statistician on its mathematical staff. Welch was appointed to the Chair in Statistics in 1968. Following the establishment of the School of Mathematics, he was appointed Head of the newly created Department of Statistics where he remained until his retirement Welch retired in 1976. In June 1989, he suffered a stroke; on 29 December 1989 Welch died as a result of it.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Welch, Bernard Lewis 1911 births 1989 deaths British statisticians Alumni of the University of Oxford Academics of the University of Leeds