Members of the International Statistical Institute a cumulative list for the period 1885 - 2002 krips Members of the International Statistical Institute a cumulative list for the period 1885-2002 a publication to celebrate 150 years of international statistical congresses editor: Gerrit J. Stemerdink © International Statistical Insitute Voorburg, August 2003 Printed with the support of Statistics Norway Foreword It is my great pleasure to say a few brief words at the beginning of this important volume. The ISI has a long and proud history starting from 1885. A scan of the cumulative membership reveals many famous names who have made extremely important contributions to statistics and society. The ISI as an organisation has had a significant influence on international statistics and continues to do so. The ISI remains strong as indi- cated by the increasing numbers attending the biennial sessions. We cannot rest on our laurels. Over our long history there have been many changes in our activities. We must learn from our history and continue to grow and enhance our activities to remain the peak professional organisation for statistics in the future. There is an incredible amount of work involved in putting together this cumulative membership list. I would like to sincerely thank Mr Gerrit Stemerdink for this. He volunteered to search the membership database and archives to obtain the required information. Technology advances will enable us to much more easily build on Gerrit's work and keep the cumulative membership list up to date. I would also like to thank Statistics Norway most sincerely for printing this volume for the ISI membership. Dennis Trewin President, International Statistical Institute May 2003 “There should be an error in every book, so that even a stupid person may consider himself smart.” Could this Chinese proverb serve as a motto for this publication? I would not dare to suggest that I put in some intentional errors in order to satisfy anyone. In an organisation with so many learned members like the ISI, this would be an insult. Nevertheless, I expect that the many errors that I failed to detect will be noticed by one of our members. All such error reports are highly welcome! It was with great enthusiasm that I took up the task of compiling this historical list. During the work this enthusiasm even grew, due to the many kind remarks I received from members who were contacted for providing missing information. Thank you all for that. I hope you will enjoy reading this booklet as much as I enjoyed preparing it. Gerrit J. Stemerdink May 2003 Members of the International Statistical Institute A Cumulative List for the Period 1885-2002 The International Statistical Institute is one of the oldest scientific societies in the world. It was founded in 1885 but before this, beginning in 1853, its precursor was the International Statistical Congresses. At the initiative of the visionary Belgian statistician Adolphe Quetelet, these congresses convened several times, culminating in the founding of the ISI in 1885. For this reason, during the 2003 ISI Session in Berlin we may celebrate 150 years of international statistical co-operation. A second memorable anniversary is the fact that ISI gathers in Berlin exactly 100 years after the first Berlin Session of 1903. For such occasions, a commemorative publication is called for. At the 1985 Centennial Ses- sion in Amsterdam, a booklet was issued with details on all persons who had ever been an ISI member since its foundation in 1885. This ‘blue book’ was received very enthusiastically and many members still cherish it. The Council accepted a proposal to develop an updated version of this publication and Mr. Gerrit Stemerdink volunteered to search the membership database and the archives in order to obtain the information needed. The ISI Council gratefully ac- knowledges the contribution of Statistics Norway to this project by providing their printing fa- cilities. The contents - Year of election This publication is not just a mere list of members. It - Year of resignation also provides some facts on the ISI, plus listings of all - Date of decease. Sessions and Presidents. In addition, an attempt has All information is as complete as we could make it, been made to present some statistics on statisticians, but alas there are some gaps. Should any reader have such as the mean age at which people were elected as additional information, or detect errors in this publica- members in different periods of the institute’s exis- tion list, we would be very grateful to receive feed- tence. back. Such information may be directed to the ISI Permanent Office, preferably by e-mail: [email protected] About the membership list Thousands of names are included in the list, including Member’s names persons that were among the first members as far All names represented in this list appear as they were back as 1885, as well as those elected as member in submitted to the ISI. While this may seem obvious, it 2002. For practical reasons, the list ends with the is not as straightforward as one might think. In most members elected at the ISI Council meeting of August European countries, the spelling of family names is 2002. rather standardised since Napoleonic times but even after that, unintentional changes occurred. Especially For each member the following information is pro- in the melting pot of cultures that formed in North vided: America in the middle of the 19th century, immigrants - Full family name from European countries, many of who were hardly - Full first and middle names literate, did not always succeed in properly adapting - Nationality their names to an English pronunciation. These errors - Birth date were often compounded by the fact that also many - 5 - INTERNATIONAL STATISTICAL INSTITUTE civil registration clerks did not always master the Then there is the problem of different naming sys- English language as well as they might have. tems in different cultures. In some, the western con- cept of a family name does not apply. Chinese names Nevertheless, ‘normal’ western names did not cause usually have their ‘family name’ first: Kong Chi and many difficulties, though some inconsistencies oc- Kong Lee could be brothers. Moreover, in Spanish curred. Scottish names like Mac Donald are mostly names, it is usual to add the mother’s surname after written with a space between Mac and Donald. How- the father’s surname, hence ‘Angel Vegas Perez’. ever, several varieties occur like Mc Donald or Mac- We did not attempt to unify or ‘correct’ any names: donald. A similar phenomenon is not uncommon we have accepted them just as they were submitted at with names from the Netherlands: De Vries became the time of application for ISI membership. Devries in the USA. In addition, German names like Müller either lost their ‘Umlaut’ or this Umlaut was replaced by an additional ‘e’, resulting in Muller or Sorting order Mueller. Some languages have ‘non-standard’ characters as mentioned above. These characters, or character For languages that do not use Western script such as combinations, could have a place in the alphabetical Chinese, Russian or Hebrew, there is the additional order that does not look logical from an English lan- problem of transliteration. There have not always guage point of view. For example, the Danish æ, ø been standardised systems for transliterating and there and å come after v, x, y (w and z do not exist in Dan- have been changes in existing ones. Up to about 1980, ish words). The Dutch combination ? was tradition- in most western languages, China’s capital city was ally regarded as one single character placed between x known as Peking, but nowadays as Beijing. In this and z. In Spanish the letter combinations ch and ll are present list, for example, we have two names that in treated as single characters as well. Most computer Russian script might be the same, Zolotareff (elected programs will sort characters on the basis of their 1905) and Zolotarev (elected 1974). ASCII value, which results in placing special and accented characters, like ß or á, at the very end. In this Languages are in a constant state of change. Apart publication, names are sorted as if they were written in from idiomatic developments, most languages un- English. So a, á, à, â, ä and å are handled as equivalent dergo official spelling reforms such as the 1999 Ger- characters as far as sequential order is concerned. man revision that caused a great deal of controversy. Spelling changes normally do not affect the writing of Another aspect that has to be taken into account names. But there are exceptions: in Danish the charac- while sorting names is that of the prefixes of names. ter ‘å’ was introduced around 1950 to replace the Germany has prefixes such as Von Sachs, in Belgium older spelling ‘aa’. ‘Århus’ on present day maps is and the Netherlands De Vries or Van der Genugten is ‘Aarhus’ on older ones. Similarly, the German ‘ß’ not uncommon. Semitic languages have their Al Saf- changed to ‘ss’ in many words with the aforemen- far, El Saidi and Ben Zvi, while in Ireland one en- tioned 1999 reform. counters O’Brien and in Scotland Mc Neil. Sometimes such prefixes are written with a space or a dash be- In addition, technical limitations have introduced tween them followed by the rest of the name, but they various challenges. The oldest membership forms are can occur written together as well. For our purposes, almost all hand-written and thus all kinds of accents all such varieties are considered as being equivalent and typical language-dependent characters were used. and are sorted accordingly.