Frank Yates FRS (12 May 1902 – 17 June 1994) was one of the pioneers of 20th-century statistics.

Biography

Yates was born in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

, England, the eldest of five children (and only son) of seed merchant Percy Yates and his wife Edith. He attended Wadham House, a private school, before gaining a scholarship to

Clifton College ''The spirit nourishes within'' , established = 160 years ago , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent boarding and day school , religion = Christian , president = , head_label = Head of College , hea ...

in 1916. In 1920 he obtained a scholarship at St John's College, Cambridge, and four years later graduated with a First Class Honours degree. He spent two years teaching mathematics to secondary school pupils at Malvern College before heading to

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

where he was mathematical advisor on the

Gold Coast Gold Coast may refer to: Places Africa * Gold Coast (region), in West Africa, which was made up of the following colonies, before being established as the independent nation of Ghana: ** Portuguese Gold Coast (Portuguese, 1482–1642) ** Dutch G ...

Survey. He returned to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

due to ill health and met and married a chemist, Margaret Forsythe Marsden, the daughter of a civil servant. This marriage was dissolved in 1933 and he later married Prascovie (Pauline) Tchitchkine, previously the partner of Alexis Tchitchkine. After her death in 1976, he married Ruth Hunt, his long-time secretary. In 1931 Yates was appointed assistant statistician at

Rothamsted Experimental Station Rothamsted Research, previously known as the Rothamsted Experimental Station and then the Institute of Arable Crops Research, is one of the oldest agricultural research institutions in the world, having been founded in 1843. It is located at Har ...

R.A. Fisher Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher (17 February 1890 – 29 July 1962) was a British polymath who was active as a mathematician, statistician, biologist, geneticist, and academic. For his work in statistics, he has been described as "a genius who ...

. In 1933 he became head of statistics when Fisher went to

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

. At Rothamsted he worked on the

design of experiments The design of experiments (DOE, DOX, or experimental design) is the design of any task that aims to describe and explain the variation of information under conditions that are hypothesized to reflect the variation. The term is generally associ ...

, including contributions to the theory of

analysis of variance Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is a collection of statistical models and their associated estimation procedures (such as the "variation" among and between groups) used to analyze the differences among means. ANOVA was developed by the statistician ...

and originating Yates's algorithm and the balanced incomplete block design. 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 ...

he worked on what would later be called

operations research Operations research ( en-GB, operational research) (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a discipline that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve decis ...

. After WWII, he worked on

sample survey In statistics, quality assurance, and survey methodology, sampling is the selection of a subset (a statistical sample) of individuals from within a statistical population to estimate characteristics of the whole population. Statisticians attem ...

design and analysis. He became an enthusiast of electronic computers, in 1954 obtaining an Elliott 401 for Rothamsted and contributing to the initial development of statistical computing. During 1960–61, he was President of the British Computer Society, succeeding the founding president and computer pioneer, Maurice Wilkes. In 1960, he was awarded the

Guy Medal The Guy Medals are awarded by the Royal Statistical Society in three categories; Gold, Silver and Bronze. The Silver and Bronze medals are awarded annually. The Gold Medal was awarded every three years between 1987 and 2011, but is awarded biennia ...

in Gold 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. ...

and, in 1966, he was awarded the Royal Medal of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

. He retired from Rothamsted to become a senior research fellow at

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

. He died in 1994, aged 92, in Harpenden.

Selected publications

*''The design and analysis of factorial experiments'', Technical Communication no. 35 of the Commonwealth Bureau of Soils (1937) (alternatively attributed to the Imperial Bureau of Soil Science). *''Statistical tables for biological, agricultural and medical research'' (1938, coauthor

)
sixth edition, 1963
*''Sampling methods for censuses and surveys'' (1949) * Computer programs GENFAC, RGSP, Fitquan.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yates, Frank 1902 births 1994 deaths People educated at Clifton College Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge English statisticians Survey methodologists 20th-century English mathematicians Academics of Imperial College London British operations researchers Scientists from Manchester Fellows of the Royal Society Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society Presidents of the British Computer Society Royal Medal winners

Biography

Selected publications

See also

References