Cedric Austen Bardell Smith (5 February 1917 – 10 January 2002) was a British statistician and

geneticist A geneticist is a biologist or physician who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a scientist or a lecturer. Geneticists may perform general research on genetic processes ...

. Smith was born in Leicester. He was the younger son of John Bardell Smith (1876–1950), a mechanical engineer, and Ada (''née'' Horrocks; 1876–1969). He was educated at

Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys was a grammar school in Leicester, England, in existence from 1876 to 1976. It was succeeded by the present-day Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth I College. History After William Wyggeston's death in 1536, his bro ...

until 1929, when the family moved to London. His education continued at

Bec School , established = 1926 , closed = 1970 , type = Grammar , religious_affiliation = , president = , head_label = , head = , r_head_label = , r_head = , chair_label = , chair ...

Tooting Tooting is a district in South London, forming part of the London Borough of Wandsworth and partly in the London Borough of Merton. It is located south south-west of Charing Cross. History Tooting has been settled since pre- Saxon times ...

, for three years, then at

University College School ("Slowly but surely") , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent day school , religion = , president = , head_label = Headmaster , head = Mark Beard , r_head_label = , r_he ...

, London. In 1935, although having failed his Higher School Certificate, he was awarded an exhibition to

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

. He graduated in the

Mathematical Tripos The Mathematical Tripos is the mathematics course that is taught in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. It is the oldest Tripos examined at the University. Origin In its classical nineteenth-century form, the tripos was ...

, with a First in Part II in 1937 and a Distinction in Part III in 1938. Following graduation he began postgraduate research, taking his PhD in 1942.

Work on combinatorics

While a student at Cambridge, Smith became close friends with three other students at Trinity College, R. L. Brooks,

A. H. Stone Arthur Harold Stone (30 September 1916 – 6 August 2000) was a British mathematician born in London, who worked at the universities of Manchester and Rochester, mostly in topology. His wife was American mathematician Dorothy Maharam. Stone s ...

and W. T. Tutte. Together they tackled a number of problems in the mathematical field of combinatorics and devised an imaginary mathematician, ' Blanche Descartes', under which name to publish their work. The group studied dissections of rectangles into squares, especially the 'perfect' squared square, a square that is divided into a number of smaller squares, no two of which are the same size. Publications under the name of 'Blanche Descartes' or 'F. de Carteblanche' continued to appear into the 1980s. The group also published more mainstream articles under their own names, the final one being R.L. Brooks, C.A.B. Smith, A.H. Stone and W.T. Tutte, 'Determinants and current flows in electric networks', Discrete Math., Vol. 100 (1992).

World War II

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, as a Quaker and conscientious objector, Smith joined the Friends Relief Service; he worked as a

hospital porter Hospital porters are employed to move patients between wards and departments and to move goods and vital supplies including medical equipment, linen, blood, and samples. This is generally not regarded as skilled work, it attracts little attention a ...

Addenbrooke's Hospital Addenbrooke's Hospital is an internationally renowned large teaching hospital and research centre in Cambridge, England, with strong affiliations to the University of Cambridge. Addenbrooke's Hospital is based on the Cambridge Biomedical Camp ...

in Cambridge. Smith's pacifist views saw him develop an interest in

peace studies Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...

. Among other responsibilities for the Society of Friends, he was a member of the Quaker Peace Studies Trust which established the chair of Peace Studies at the

University of Bradford The University of Bradford is a public research university located in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. A plate glass university, it received its royal charter in 1966, making it the 40th university to be created in Britain, but ...

. Smith was also a founder member (and Chairman) of the Conflict Research Society.

Post-war career

In 1946 he was appointed Assistant Lecturer at the

Galton Laboratory The Galton Laboratory was a laboratory for research into eugenics and then into human genetics based at University College London in London, England. It was originally established in 1904, and became part of UCL's biology department in 1996. The a ...

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

. He remained at UCL for the rest of his career, becoming successively Lecturer and

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, before appointment as Weldon Professor of

Biometry Biostatistics (also known as biometry) are the development and application of statistical methods to a wide range of topics in biology. It encompasses the design of biological experiments, the collection and analysis of data from those experimen ...

in 1964. On his arrival at UCL, Smith was influenced by

J. B. S. Haldane John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (; 5 November 18921 December 1964), nicknamed "Jack" or "JBS", was a British-Indian scientist who worked in physiology, genetics, evolutionary biology, and mathematics. With innovative use of statistics in biolog ...

, who introduced him to problems of linkage in human genetics in which field he was able to bring his skills as a statistician to bear. He invented some of the mathematical methods used to map human genes. In 1955, he invented the "gene counting" method of inferring gene frequencies from the frequencies of genotypes in populations. This was an early example of the

EM Algorithm EM, Em or em may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * EM, the E major musical scale * Em, the E minor musical scale * Electronic music, music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production * Enc ...

, over 20 years before its introduction by Dempster, Laird and Rubin. He gave a more general discussion of the gene-counting method and its statistical properties in 1957. Smith was elected a Fellow 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. ...

in 1945. He was a member of the Genetical Society (serving as Treasurer), the International Biometric Society (British Region), serving as President 1971–1972, and the International Statistical Institute.

Other interests

He was a member of the advisory committee to the

Anti-Concorde Project The Anti-Concorde Project, founded by environmental activist Richard Wiggs, challenged the idea of supersonic passenger transport, and curtailed Concorde's commercial prospects. When Concorde entered service in 1976, of the 74 options (non-bindin ...

Family

In 1957 he married Piroska Vermes (1921–2000), known as 'Piri'. They had one son, who survived them."Cedric Smith" (obituary), ''The Times'', 21 February 2002. Piri's father, Dr. Paul Vermes (1897–1968), was a Hungarian refugee who became a professional mathematician at the age of 50.

References

* The Detection of Linkage in Human Genetics,

Journal of the Royal Statistical Society The ''Journal of the Royal Statistical Society'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of statistics. It comprises three series and is published by Wiley for the Royal Statistical Society. History The Statistical Society of London was founded ...

. Series B (Methodological), Vol. 15, No. 2. (1953), pp. 153–192.

External links

E. Thompson: "1953 An unrecognized summit in human genetic linkage analysis"
(abstract)
E. Thompson: "1953 An unrecognized summit in human genetic linkage analysis"
(paper)
Catalogue of the Smith papers held at UCL Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Cedric Austen Bardell 1917 births 2002 deaths Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Modern synthesis (20th century) People from Leicester British conscientious objectors Biostatisticians English geneticists English statisticians 20th-century English mathematicians Academics of University College London People educated at University College School People educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys British Quakers