- Joseph Oscar Irwin
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Joseph Oscar Irwin (17 December 1898 – 27 July 1982)British statistician who advanced the use of statistical methods in biological assay and other fields of laboratory medicine. Irwin’s grasp of modern mathematical statistics distinguished him not only from older medical statisticians like Major Greenwood but contemporaries like Austin Bradford Hill.
Oscar Irwin was born in London. He attended the City of London School where he specialized in classics and then at a late date in mathematics. In December 1917 he won a scholarship to Christ's College, Cambridge to read mathematics. A serious illness disqualified him from war service but he spent a year computing anti-aircraft trajectories for Karl Pearson. When Irwin graduated from Cambridge in 1921 he joined Pearson’s department of applied statistics which had returned to its normal activities. Irwin published his first work there, including his 1927 paper on the distribution of means.
In 1928 Irwin moved to Rothamsted Experimental Station and he stayed there until 1931. His old boss Pearson and his new boss R. A. Fisher were bitter enemies but Irwin's conciliatory nature allowed him to remain on good terms with both men. At Rothamsted he continued to work on mathematical statistics and he became one of the first people to master Fisher's innovations. Fisher made few concessions to his readers: see Barnard's well-known "you are a mathematician, work it out" story. Irwin made an important contribution to the dissemination of Fisher's ideas by writing expository pieces. In his appreciation Greenberg recalls the mathematical statisticians R. C. Bose and S. N. Roy telling him how by reading Irwin they been able to understand Fisher. Another valuable educational project was the series of papers "Recent Advances in Mathematical Statistics" which Irwin inaugurated in 1931.
From 1931 until he retired in 1965 Irwin worked for the Medical Research Council at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Besides doing his own research he was a consultant on technical statistical matters. There was a break in the Second World War when Irwin was responsible for the teaching of statistics at Cambridge. For many mathematicians, including Lindley, Armitage, and Kempthorne, the course of Irwin was the first step to becoming statisticians.
At the MRC Irwin wrote a series of important papers on bioassay. An important theoretical contribution was his 1935 paper on "Fisher's exact test". Irwin had done the work in 1933, apparently preceding the better known work of Fisher and Yates. After the war Irwin embarked on a number of long-term collaborative studies, often for official committees. These were applied studies but he continued to work on more mathematical problems, e.g. he produced a series of papers on the Generalized Waring Distribution.
Oscar Irwin received many honours and served as president of the Royal Statistical Society in 1962–64; he had played an important part in the affairs of the society for many years.
Greeenberg has described the man
J. O. Irwin was a soft spoken kind soul who took a tremendous interest in his students and their achievements.... He was a lovable absent-minded kind of professor who smoked more matches than he did tobacco in his ever-present pipe while he was deeply involved in thinking about other important matters.
Contents
Selected publications
According to Armitage, Irwin published about 120 papers. There is no published bibliography but many of the papers can be found by searching JSTOR.
- J. O. Irwin (1927) On the Frequency Distribution of the Means of Samples from a Population Having any Law of Frequency with Finite Moments, with Special Reference to Pearson's Type II, Biometrika Vol. 19, pp. 225–239.
- J. O. Irwin (1931) Recent Advances in Mathematical Statistics, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Vol. 94, pp. 568–578
- J. O. Irwin (1935) Tests of Significance for Differences between Percentages Based on Small Numbers, Metron, Vol. 12, pp. 83–94.
- J. O. Irwin (1963) Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher, 1890–1962, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A, Vol. 126, pp. 159–162.
- J. O. Irwin (1975) The Generalized Waring Distribution. Part I, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (General), Vol. 138, pp. 18–31.
Life
- Peter Armitage (1982) Joseph Oscar Irwin (1898–1982), Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A, 145, 526–528.
- Bernard G. Greenberg (1983) Joseph Oscar Irwin, 1898–1982, An Obituary Appreciation, Biometrics, 39, 527–528.
- Peter Armitage (2001) Joseph Oscar Irwin, Statisticians of the Centuries (ed. C. C. Heyde and E. Seneta) pp. 472–474. New York: Springer.
See also
- Irwin–Hall distribution
External links
There is a photograph at
- Joseph Oscar Irwin on the Portraits of Statisticians page.
For Irwin’s correspondence with Fisher see
- Statistical Inference and Analysis, Selected Correspondence of R.A. Fisher Edited by J.H. Bennett
- Calendar of Correspondence with J.O. (Oscar) Irwin
Academic offices Preceded by
Maurice KendallPresident of the Royal Statistical Society
1962–1964Succeeded by
Sir Paul ChambersGuy Medallists Gold Medallists Charles Booth (1892) · Robert Giffen (1894) · J. Athelstane Baines (1900) · Francis Ysidro Edgeworth (1907) · Patrick G. Craigie (1908) · G. Udny Yule (1911) · T.H.C. Stevenson (1920) · A. William Flux (1930) · A.L. Bowley (1935) · Major Greenwood (1945) · R.A. Fisher (1946) · A. Bradford Hill (1953) · E.S. Pearson (1955) · Frank Yates (1960) · Harold Jeffreys (1962) · Jerzy Neyman (1966) · M.G. Kendall (1968) · M.S. Bartlett (1969) · Harald Cramér (1972) · David Cox (1973) · G.A. Barnard (1975) · Roy Allen (1978) · D.G. Kendall (1981) · Henry Daniels (1984) · Bernard Benjamin (1986) · Robin Plackett (1987) · Peter Armitage (1990) · George E. P. Box (1993) · Peter Whittle (1996) · Michael Healy (1999) · D.V. Lindley (2002) · John Nelder (2005) · James Durbin (2008) · C.R. Rao (2011)
Silver Medallists John Glover (1893) · Augustus Sauerbeck (1894) · A.L. Bowley (1895) · F.J. Atkinson (1897) · C.S. Loch (1899) · Richard Crawford (1900) · Thomas A. Welton (1901) · R.H. Hooker (1902) · Yves Guyot (1903) · D.A. Thomas (1904) · R.H. Rew (1905) · W.H. Shaw (1906) · N.A. Humphreys (1907) · Edward Brabrook (1909) · G.H. Wood (1910) · R. Dudfield (1913) · S. Rowson (1914) · S.J. Chapman (1915) · J. Shield Nicholson (1918) · J.C. Stamp (1919) · A. William Flux (1921) · H.W. Macrosty (1927) · Ethel Newbold (1928) · H.E. Soper (1930) · J.H. Jones (1934) · E.C. Snow (1935) · R.G. Hawtrey (1936) · E.C. Ramsbottom (1938) · L. Isserlis (1939) · H. Leak (1940) · M.G. Kendall (1945) · H. Campion (1950) · F.A.A. Menzler (1951) · M.S. Bartlett (1952) · J.O. Irwin (1953) · L.H.C. Tippett (1954) · D.G. Kendall (1955) · Henry Daniels (1957) · G.A. Barnard (1958) · E.C. Fieller (1960) · D.R. Cox (1961) · P.V. Sukhatme (1962) · George E. P. Box (1964) · C.R. Rao (1965) · Peter Whittle (1966) · D.V. Lindley (1968) · Robin Plackett (1973) · James Durbin (1976) · John Nelder (1977) · Peter Armitage (1978) · Michael Healy (1979) · M. Stone (1980) · John Kingman (1981) · Henry Wynn (1982) · Julian Besag (1983) · J.C. Gittins (1984) · A. Bissell, W. Pridmore (1985) · Richard Peto (1986) · John Copas (1987) · J. Aitchison (1988) · F.P. Kelly (1989) · David Clayton (1990) · R.L. Smith (1991) · Robert Curnow (1992) · A.F.M. Smith (1993) · David Spiegelhalter (1994) · B.W. Silverman (1995) · Stephan Lauritzen (1996) · Peter Diggle (1997) · Harvey Goldstein (1998) · Peter Green (1999) · Walter Gilks (2000) · Philip Dawid (2001) · David Hand (2002) · Kanti Mardia (2003) · Peter Donnelly (2004) · Peter McCullagh (2005) · Michael Titterington (2006) · Howell Tong (2007) · Gareth Roberts (2008) · Sylvia Richardson (2009) · I.M. Johnstone (2010) · P.G. Hall (2011)
Bronze Medallists William Gemmell Cochran (1936) · R.F. George (1938) · W.J. Jennett (1949) · Peter Armitage (1962) · James Durbin (1966) · F. Downton (1967) · Robin Plackett (1968) · M.C. Pike (1969) · P.G. Moore (1970) · D.J. Bartholomew (1971) · G.N. Wilkinson (1974) · A.F. Bissell (1975) · P.L. Goldsmith (1976) · A.F.M. Smith (1977) · Philip Dawid (1978) · T.M.F. Smith (1979) · A.J. Fox (1980) · S.J. Pocock (1982) · Peter McCullagh (1983) · Bernard Silverman (1984) · David Spiegelhalter (1985) · D.F. Hendry (1986) · Peter Green (1987) · S.C. Darby (1988) · S.M. Gore (1989) · Valerie Isham (1990) · M.G. Kenward (1991) · C. Jennison (1992) · J.A. Tawn (1993) · R.F.A. Poultney (1994) · I. Johnstone (1995) · J.N.S. Matthews (1996) · Gareth Roberts (1997) · D. Firth (1998) · P.W.F. Smith, J. Forster (1999) · J. Wakefield (2000) · Guy Nason (2001) · Geert Molenberghs (2002) · Peter Lynn (2003) · Nicola Best (2004) · Steve Brooks (2005) · Matthew Stephens (2006) · Paul Fearnhead (2007) · Fiona Steele (2008) · Chris Holmes (2009) · O. Papaspiliopoulos (2010) · N. Meinshausen (2011)
Categories:- British statisticians
- Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society
- Rothamsted statisticians
- 1898 births
- 1982 deaths
- Old Citizens (City of London School)
- Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge
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