Ronald Aylmer Fisher, 1890-1962

Abstract

Ronald Aylmer Fisher was born on 17 February 1890, in East Finchley. He and his twin brother, who died in infancy, were the youngest of eight children. His father, George Fisher, was a member of the well-known firm of auctioneers, Robinson and Fisher, of King Street, St James’s, London. His father’s family were mostly business men, but an uncle, a younger brother of his father, was placed high as a Cambridge Wrangler and went into the church. His mother’s father was a successful London solicitor noted for his social qualities. There was, however, an adventurous streak in the family, as his mother’s only brother threw up excellent prospects in London to collect wild animals in Africa, and one of his own brothers returned from the Argentine to serve in the first world war, and was killed in 1915. As with many mathematicians, Fisher’s special ability showed at an early age. Before he was six, his mother read to him a popular book on astronomy, an interest which he followed eagerly through his boyhood, attending lectures by Sir Robert Ball at the age of seven or eight. Love of mathematics dominated his educational career. He was fortunate at Stanmore Park School in being taught by W. N. Roe, a brilliant mathematical teacher and a well-known cricketer, and at Harrow School by C. H. P. Mayo and W. N. Roseveare. Even in his school days his eyesight was very poor—he suffered from extreme myopia—and he was forbidden to work by electric light. In the evenings Roseveare would instruct him without pencil or paper or any visual aid. This gave him exceptional ability to solve mathematical problems entirely in his head; and also a strong geometrical sense, which stood him in good stead later in the derivation of exact distributions of many wellknown statistics derived from small samples. Other mathematical statisticians, most of whom were not very skilled algebraists, consequently found his work difficult to follow, and often criticized him for inadequate proofs and the use of ‘intuition’.