Frank Yates

Frank Yates
FRS
Frank Yates FRS
	Frank Yates at the statistics conference at the Blue Ridge Assembly in Asheville, NC during the summer of 1952.
Born	12 May 1902
Died	17 June 1994 (aged 92)
Education	St John's College, Cambridge
Years active	1933-1968

Frank Yates FRS (12 May 1902 – 17 June 1994) was one of the pioneers of 20th-century statistics.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Biography

Yates was born in Manchester, England, the eldest of five children (and only son) of seed merchant and botanist Percy Yates and his wife Edith. He attended Wadham House, a private school, before gaining a scholarship to Clifton College 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.^[1]^[2]

He spent two years teaching mathematics to secondary school pupils at Malvern College before heading to Africa, where he was mathematical advisor on the Gold Coast Survey. He returned to England, 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.^[1]^[2]

In 1931, Yates was appointed assistant statistician at Rothamsted Experimental Station by R.A. Fisher. In 1933, he became head of statistics when Fisher went to University College London. At Rothamsted he worked on the design of experiments, including contributions to the theory of analysis of variance, as well as developing Yates's algorithm and the balanced incomplete block design.^[1]^[2]^[3]

During World War II he worked on what would later be called operations research.^[1]^[3]

After WWII, he worked on sample survey 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.^[1]^[2]^[3] 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 in Gold of the Royal Statistical Society and, in 1966, he was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society.^[1]^[2] He retired from Rothamsted to become a senior research fellow at Imperial College London.^[1]^[2] He died in 1994, aged 92, in Harpenden.^[1]

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 R.A. Fisher): sixth edition, 1963
Sampling methods for censuses and surveys (1949)
Computer programs GENFAC, RGSP, Fitquan.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ Finney, D. J. (1995). "Frank Yates. 12 May 1902 – 17 June 1994". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 41: 554–573. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1995.0033. JSTOR 770162. PMID 11615364. S2CID 26871863.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Frank Yates", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Neider, John (1994), "Obituary: Frank Yates: 1902–1994", The IMS Bulletin, 23 (5): 529–530, archived from the original on 4 March 2016, retrieved 23 January 2014

Professional and academic associations
Preceded by Maurice Wilkes	President of the British Computer Society 1960–1961	Succeeded by Dudley Hooper

[frs-1] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ Finney, D. J. (1995). "Frank Yates. 12 May 1902 – 17 June 1994". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 41: 554–573. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1995.0033. JSTOR 770162. PMID 11615364. S2CID 26871863.

[mactutor-2] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Frank Yates", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews

[ims-3] Neider, John (1994), "Obituary: Frank Yates: 1902–1994", The IMS Bulletin, 23 (5): 529–530, archived from the original on 4 March 2016, retrieved 23 January 2014

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[2]

[3]

v t e Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society
19th century	1834–1836 The Marquess of Lansdowne 1836–1838 Sir Charles Lemon, Bt 1838–1840 The Earl FitzWilliam 1840–1842 Viscount Sandon 1842–1843 The Marquess of Lansdowne 1843–1845 Lord Ashley 1845–1847 The Lord Monteagle of Brandon 1847–1849 The Earl FitzWilliam 1849–1851 The Earl of Harrowby 1851–1853 The Lord Overstone 1853–1855 The Earl FitzWilliam 1855–1857 The Earl of Harrowby 1857–1859 Lord Stanley 1859–1861 Lord John Russell 1861–1863 Sir John Pakington, Bt 1863–1865 William Henry Sykes 1865–1867 The Lord Houghton 1867–1869 William Ewart Gladstone 1869–1871 William Newmarch 1871–1873 William Farr 1873–1875 William Guy 1875–1877 James Heywood 1877–1879 George Shaw-Lefevre 1879–1880 Thomas Brassey 1880–1882 James Caird 1882–1884 Robert Giffen 1884–1886 Rawson W. Rawson 1886–1888 George Goschen 1888–1890 Thomas Graham Balfour 1890–1892 Frederic J. Mouat 1892–1894 Charles Booth 1894–1896 The Lord Farrer 1896–1897 John Biddulph Martin 1897 Alfred Edmund Bateman 1897–1899 Leonard Courtney 1899–1900 Henry Fowler 1900–1902 The Lord Avebury
20th century	1902–1904 Patrick George Craigie 1904–1905 Sir Francis Powell, Bt 1905–1906 The Earl of Onslow 1906–1907 Richard Martin 1907–1909 Sir Charles Dilke, Bt 1909–1910 Jervoise Athelstane Baines 1910–1912 Lord George Hamilton 1912–1914 Francis Ysidro Edgeworth 1914–1915 The Lord Welby 1915–1916 Lord George Hamilton 1916–1918 Bernard Mallet, Registrar General 1918–1920 Herbert Samuel 1920–1922 R. Henry Rew 1922–1924 The Lord Emmott 1924–1926 Udny Yule 1926–1928 The Viscount D'Abernon 1928–1930 A. William Flux 1930–1932 Sir Josiah Stamp 1932–1934 The Lord Meston 1934–1936 Major Greenwood 1936–1938 The Lord Kennet 1938–1940 Arthur Lyon Bowley 1940–1941 Henry William Macrosty 1941 Hector Leak 1941–1943 William Beveridge 1943–1945 Ernest Charles Snow 1945–1947 The Lord Woolton 1947–1949 David Heron 1949–1950 Sir Geoffrey Heyworth 1950–1952 Austin Bradford Hill 1952–1954 Ronald Fisher 1954–1955 The Lord Piercy 1955–1957 Egon Pearson 1957–1959 Harry Campion 1959–1960 Hugh Beaver 1960–1962 Maurice Kendall 1962–1964 Joseph Oscar Irwin 1964–1965 Sir Paul Chambers 1965–1966 L. H. C. Tippett 1966–1967 M. S. Bartlett 1967–1968 Frank Yates 1968–1969 Arthur Cockfield 1969–1970 R. G. D. Allen 1970–1971 Bernard Benjamin 1971–1972 George Alfred Barnard 1972–1973 Harold Wilson 1973–1974 D. J. Finney 1974–1975 Henry Daniels 1975–1977 Stella Cunliffe 1977–1978 Henry Wynn 1978–1980 Sir Claus Moser 1980–1982 David Cox 1982–1984 Peter Armitage 1984–1985 Walter Bodmer 1985–1986 John Nelder 1986–1987 James Durbin 1987–1989 John Kingman 1989–1991 Peter G. Moore 1991–1993 T. M. F. Smith 1993–1995 D. J. Bartholomew 1995–1997 Adrian Smith 1997–1999 Robert Nicholas Curnow 1999–2001 Denise Lievesley
21st century	2001–2003 Peter Green 2003–2005 Andy Grieve 2005–2007 Tim Holt 2008–2009 David Hand 2010–2010 Bernard Silverman (resigned Feb 2010; replaced pro tem by David Hand) 2011–2012 Valerie Isham 2013–2014 John Pullinger 2014–2016 Peter Diggle 2017–2018 David Spiegelhalter 2019– Deborah Ashby
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