This paper considers the place of mathematical methods based on probability in the work of the London (later Royal) Statistical Society in the half-century 1883-1933. The end-points are chosen because mathematical work started to appear regularly in 1883 and 1933 saw the formation of the...

Arthur. L. Bowley (1869-1957) first advocated the use of surveys--the "representative method"--in 1906 and started to conduct surveys of economic and social conditions in 1912. Bowley's 1926 memorandum for the International Statistical Institute on the "Measurement of the precision attained in...

This paper considers how the concepts of likelihood and identification became part of Bayesian theory. This makes a nice study in the development of concepts in statistical theory. Likelihood slipped in easily but there was a protracted debate about how identification should be treated....

This paper examines the experiment in macroeconometrics, the different forms it has taken and the rules that have been proposed for its proper conduct. Here an "experiment" means putting a question to a model and getting an answer. Different types of experiment are distinguished and the...

In 1922 R. A. Fisher introduced the fixed X regression model, synthesising the regression theory of Pearson and Yule with the least squares theory of Gauss. The innovation was based on Fisher's realisation that the distribution associated with the regression coefficient was unaffected by the...

The paper considers the statistical work of the applied mathematician Harold Jeffreys. In 1933-4 Jeffreys had a controversy with R. A. Fisher, the leading statistician of the time. Before this encounter Jeffreys had been developing probability as the basis for scientific inference and using the...

This paper considers J. M. Keynes as a statistician and philosopher of statistics and the reaction of English statisticians to his critique of their work. It follows the development of Keynes's thinking through the two versions of his fellowship dissertation The Principles of Probability...