The president of the Royal Statistical Society is the head of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), elected biennially by the Fellows of the Society. The time-period between elections has varied in the past.
The president oversees the running of the Society and chairs its council meetings. He or she also gives a presidential address at some point in their tenure, which is published in the longest running journal of the society, Series A, setting out personal views on the future of discipline and the role of the society. In recent years, almost all presidents have been nominated following many years' service to the Society, although some have been nominated to mark their eminence in society generally, such as Harold Wilson.
Nominations for president are received by the society's Nominating Committee. [1] The committee recommends at least one fellow to Council who, at a meeting, agree a preferred candidate or candidates. If only one preferred candidate is selected, the Fellowship are given four weeks to offer an alternate candidate.
There has only been one contested election in the Society's history, in 1977. Many fellows objected to the nomination by the Council of Campbell Adamson because he was not a statistician, was said to have made derogatory comments about statisticians, and principally because in the previous year he had been defeated in an election to the Council of the Society, and fellows felt that he was being foisted upon the Society by the current 'establishment' in an essentially undemocratic fashion. [2] Henry Wynn was nominated by several fellows (including Adrian Smith, himself later president, and Philip Dawid) and won the election.
Despite women being elected fellows from 1858, only five have been president of the society. Three of these have been in the 21st century although the proportion remains biased to men with nine male presidents since 2001.
In 2010, Bernard Silverman stepped down very early in his presidential term. This was due to being appointed as chief scientific advisor to the Home Office which presented a conflict of interest as the society sometimes issues expert statements on statistical matters in public life. In 2022 then president-elect David Firth withdrew on health grounds, prompting a further election in which the immediate past-president, Andrew Garrett, was elected. [3] The current president is Prof Sir John Aston. [4]
Three Princes of Wales have been an honorary president:
Dudley Ryder, 1st Earl of Harrowby, PC, FSA was a prominent British politician of the Pittite faction and the Tory party.
Earl of Harrowby, in the County of Lincoln, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1809 for the prominent politician and former Foreign Secretary, Dudley Ryder, 2nd Baron Harrowby. He was made Viscount Sandon, of Sandon in the County of Stafford, at the same time, which title is used as a courtesy title by the heir apparent to the earldom. His son, the second Earl, held office under Lord Palmerston as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Lord Privy Seal. He was succeeded by his eldest son, the third Earl. He was a Conservative politician and notably served as President of the Board of Trade from 1878 to 1880.
Dudley Ryder, 2nd Earl of Harrowby, KG, PC, FRS, styled Viscount Sandon between 1809 and 1847, was a British politician. He held office under Lord Palmerston as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1855 and as Lord Privy Seal between 1855 and 1858.
The Comptroller of the Household is an ancient position in the British royal household, nominally the second-ranking member of the Lord Steward's department after the Treasurer of the Household. The Comptroller was an ex officio member of the Board of Green Cloth, until that body was abolished in the reform of local government licensing in 2004. In recent times, a senior government whip has invariably occupied the office. On state occasions the Comptroller carries a white staff of office, as often seen in portraits.
The FitzGerald dynasty is a Hiberno-Norman noble and aristocratic dynasty, originally of Cambro-Norman and Anglo-Norman origin. They have been peers of Ireland since at least the 13th century, and are described in the Annals of the Four Masters as having become "more Irish than the Irish themselves" or Gaels, due to assimilation with the native Gaelic aristocratic and popular culture. The dynasty has also been referred to as the Geraldines and Ireland's largest landowners. They achieved power through colonisation and the conquest of large swathes of Irish territory by the sons and grandsons of Gerald de Windsor. Gerald de Windsor was the first Castellan of Pembroke Castle in Wales, and became the male progenitor of the FitzMaurice and FitzGerald Dynasty. His father, Baron Walter FitzOther, was the first Constable and Governor of Windsor Castle for William the Conqueror, and was the Lord of 38 manors in England, making the FitzGeralds one of the "service families" on whom the King relied for his survival. Some of its members became the Black Knights, Green Knights and White Knights.
Sir David John Spiegelhalter is a British statistician and a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. From 2007 to 2018 he was Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk in the Statistical Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. Spiegelhalter is an ISI highly cited researcher.
Sir William Arbuthnot, 1st Baronet of Edinburgh FRSE was a Scottish landowner and politician. He served as Lord Provost of Edinburgh and Lord Lieutenant of the City of Edinburgh.
Sir William FitzWilliam was an English statesman who served as Lord Justice of Ireland and afterwards Lord Deputy of Ireland. In 1587, as Governor of Fotheringhay Castle, he supervised the execution of the death sentence on Mary, Queen of Scots. He was the Member of Parliament for Peterborough and represented County Carlow in the Irish House of Commons. He lived at Gainspark, Essex, and Milton Hall. He has been noted for his corruption during his final term as Lord Deputy, which enabled the Irish confederacy during the early years of the Nine Years' War.
Charles William Wentworth Fitzwilliam, 5th Earl Fitzwilliam in the peerage of Ireland, and 3rd Earl Fitzwilliam in the peerage of Great Britain, was a British nobleman and politician. He was president three times of the Royal Statistical Society in 1838–1840, 1847–1849, and 1853–1855; and president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in its inaugural year (1831–2).
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Henry Philip Wynn was a British statistician who served as President of the Royal Statistical Society.
The High Sheriff of County Cork was the Sovereign's judicial representative in County Cork. Initially an office for lifetime, assigned by the Sovereign, the High Sheriff became an annual appointment following the Provisions of Oxford in 1258. Besides his judicial importance, the sheriff had ceremonial and administrative functions and executed High Court Writs.
The royal households of the United Kingdom consist of royal officials and the supporting staff of the British royal family, as well as the royal household which supports the sovereign. Each member of the royal family who undertakes public duties has their own separate household.
Peter John Diggle, is a British statistician. He holds concurrent appointments with the Faculty of Health and Medicine at Lancaster University, and the Institute of Infection and Global Health at the University of Liverpool. From 2004 to 2008 he was an EPSRC Senior Research Fellow. He is one of the founding co-editors of the journal Biostatistics.