Sir William Palin Elderton KBE PhD (Oslo) (1877–1962) was a British

actuary An actuary is a business professional who deals with the measurement and management of risk and uncertainty. The name of the corresponding field is actuarial science. These risks can affect both sides of the balance sheet and require asset man ...

who served as president of the

Institute of Actuaries The Institute of Actuaries was one of the two professional bodies which represented actuaries in the United Kingdom. The institute was based in England, while the other body, the Faculty of Actuaries, was based in Scotland. While the Institute an ...

(1932–1934). Elderton also had a very long association with the statistical journal

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 ...

. In its early days he published several articles, and in 1935 he became chairman of the Biometrika Trust. In 1900 when he was training to be an actuary Elderton met

Karl Pearson Karl Pearson (; born Carl Pearson; 27 March 1857 – 27 April 1936) was an English mathematician and biostatistician. He has been credited with establishing the discipline of mathematical statistics. He founded the world's first university st ...

and was drawn into the

University College In a number of countries, a university college is a college institution that provides tertiary education but does not have full or independent university status. A university college is often part of a larger university. The precise usage varies ...

statistical group. In 1902 Elderton computed the first tables of Pearson's chi-squared and in 1907 he published an exposition of the Pearson curves for actuaries. His sister

Ethel M. Elderton Ethel Mary Elderton (1878–1954) was a British eugenics researcher who worked with Francis Galton and Karl Pearson. Biography Elderton was born on 31 December 1878 in Fulham, London. Her father, William Alexander Elderton was a private tutor ...

worked for Pearson, and together the Eldertons wrote an introduction to the new ideas in

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...

. She provided financial backing for Pearson's

Anthropometric Laboratory Anthropometry () refers to the measurement of the human individual. An early tool of physical anthropology, it has been used for identification, for the purposes of understanding human physical variation, in paleoanthropology and in various at ...

, "his fourth laboratory". Elderton was an invited speaker in the

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the Nevanlinna Prize (to be rename ...

1908,

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.''A comparison of some curves used for graduating chance distribution.''"In this paper the principal systems of curves of frequency studied by Pearson, Thiele, Charlier, Edgeworth, Bruns were exhibited. After having outlined the method of perequations of Pearson, the author applied equations of curves of form already known to practical cases relative to typical frequency." p. 28 of:

Books

* W. Palin Elderton (1906) ''Frequency-Curves and Correlation''. London: Charles and Edwin Layton, 172 pages. * W. Palin Elderton and Ethel M. Elderton (1909) ''Primer of Statistics''. London: A&C Black Ltd. * W. Palin Elderton and Richard C. Fippard (1914)''The Construction of Mortality and Sickness Tables : a Primer''. London : A. & C. Black.

Papers

* * William Palin Elderton (1949): ''A few statistics on the length of English words.'' In: ''

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 A (General), Vol. CXII, Part IV, p. 436-445.

Elderton's work

* Karl-Heinz Best (2009): ''Wortlängen im Englischen''. In: ''Glottometrics'' 19, p. 1-10. (PD
ram-verlag.
Review of Elderton's model of word length distributions proposing alternative models.) * Peter Grzybek (2006): ''History and Methodology of Word Length Studies. The State of the Art''. In: Peter Grzybek (ed.): ''Contributions to the Science of Text and Language: Word length studies and related issues''. Dordrecht: Springer, S. 15-90. . (Grzybek discusses Elderton's model of word length distributions p. 19-26.)

References

Obituaries

William P. Elderton FIA; CBE; KBE. TFA, 28 (1962-1964) p. 193-195

William P. Elderton FIA; CBE; KBE. JIA, 88 (1962) p. 245-252
* * Best, Karl-Heinz (2009): ''William Palin Elderton (1877-1962).'' In: ''Glottometrics'' 19, p. 99-101. (PD
ram-verlag.
(In German) * F. A. A. Menzler Sir William Palin Elderton, 1877–1962, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (General), Vol. 125, No. 4 (1962), pp. 669–672 {{DEFAULTSORT:Elderton, William Palin British actuaries 1877 births 1962 deaths Quantitative linguistics British statisticians