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

actuary An actuary is a professional with advanced mathematical skills who deals with the measurement and management of risk and uncertainty. These risks can affect both sides of the balance sheet and require investment management, asset management, ...

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 a ...

(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 the Biometrika Trust. The editor-in-chief is Paul Fearnhead (Lancaster University). The principal focus of this journal is theoretical statistics. It was ...

. 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 biostatistician and mathematician. He has been credited with establishing the discipline of mathematical statistics. He founded the world's first university ...

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 f ...

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

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...

. She provided financial backing for Pearson's Anthropometric Laboratory, "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 IMU Abacus Medal (known before ...

1908,

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

Books

* W. Palin Elderton (1906) ''Frequency-Curves and Correlation''. London: Charles and Edwin Layton, 172 pages. 2nd edition, 1927; 3rd edition, 1938; * W. Palin Elderton and Ethel M. Elderton (1909) ''Primer of Statistics''. London: A&C Black Ltd. 2nd edition, 1910; * 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 Oxford University Press for the Royal Statistical Society. History The Statistical Society of ...

'', 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 Knights_Commander_of_the_Order_of_the_British_Empire