Edward H. Simpson

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Edward Simpson

Maurice Bartlett

Edward Hugh Simpson

CB (10 December 1922[1] – 5 February 2019[2][3][4]) was a British codebreaker, statistician and civil servant. He was best known for describing Simpson's paradox along with Udny Yule
.

Contributions to the field of statistics

Edward Hugh Simpson was introduced to the thinking of

Numb3rs,[3] and also, appropriately, in an episode of The Simpsons.[8]

At one point a useful observation of his on the aggregate behaviour of teachers' pay was labelled "Simpson's Drift".[9]

Education

Simpson grew up in Northern Ireland, and attended Coleraine Academical Institution, and he then studied at Queen's University, Belfast (BSc, 1st cl. Hons Mathematics), graduating at age 19 in 1942. After the war, he studied for a PhD degree in Mathematical Statistics at Christ's College, Cambridge as a scholar, from 1945 to 1947.[1]

Career

In Autumn 1942, Simpson was recruited to work at

Lord Hailsham as Lord President of the Council and Lord Privy Seal, and in the Civil Service Department.[citation needed
]

He was a

Simpson served as Deputy Secretary,

Companion of the Order of the Bath
, in 1976 recognizing his contributions to the field of education, and retired in 1982.

On his retirement in 1982, Simpson continued to be involved in education as Chairman of the National Assessment Panel for the Schools’ Curriculum Award (1983–95), held fellowships at the Universities of Birmingham and Warwick, and served as Chair of Governors of Dixon's City Technology College in Bradford from 1989 to 1999, which involved overseeing the building of the college from a greenfield site. He was a Governor of Bishop Grosseteste University in Lincoln from 1984 to 1989 and awarded an Honorary Doctorate in July 1992.

Published works

Simpson published an article on the measurement of diversity in Nature in 1949.[11] Subsequently, "The Interpretation of Interaction in Contingency Tables" was published in 1951 in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society.[6]

At the age of 95, Simpson contributed two chapters on the crypt-analytic process Banburismus, developed by Alan Turing at Bletchley Park during World War II, to a review of the code-breaking project published in 2017. [12]

Personal

Edward Simpson was the only son of Hugh and Mary Simpson, of Brookfield, Ballymena, Co. Antrim.[citation needed] In 1947, he married Rebecca Gibson of Ernevale, Kesh, Co. Fermanagh.[citation needed] She had also been working in the Italian Naval Section at GCHQ during WWII and both transferred to work on JN-25. Rebecca predeceased Edward in 2012. They had one son and one daughter, and four grandchildren.[13]

References

  1. ^ a b Simpson, Edward Hugh, Who's Who 2014, A & C Black, 2014; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2014
  2. ^ FM, Player. "E86 - From Cassino To Kohima Bletchley Park podcast". player.fm. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  3. ^
    ISSN 0307-1235
    . Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  4. .
  5. on 20 June 2012. Retrieved 17 March 2013.
  6. ^
    Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B
    . 13: 238–241.
  7. ^ "Simpson's paradox | Definition, Example, and Explanation". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  8. ^ Obituary in Christ’s College, Cambridge, 2019 Magazine.
  9. .
  10. ^ "The Commonwealth Fund: Harkness Fellows 1925-1997". The Commonwealth Fund. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  11. S2CID 204990535
    .
  12. .
  13. ^ "Obituary", Christ’s College Magazine, UK: Christ's College, Cambridge