William Sealy Gosset (1876 - 1937)

Born 13 Jun 1876 in Canterbury, Kent, England, United Kingdom

Ancestors

Husband of Marjory Surtees (Phillpotts) Gosset — married 16 Jan 1906 in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, United Kingdom

Died 16 Oct 1937 at age 61 in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom

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William was an Irish Mathematician.

William Sealy Gosset was an industrial scientist who pioneered small sample experimental design and analysis while employed as a Brewer with Arthur Guinness, Son & Co. Ltd.

Biography

William Gosset is Notable.

William Gosset was born in Canterbury, Kent, England.

William Sealy Gosset published under the pseudonym Student and was best known for developing Student's t-distribution.

Early Life

William Sealy Gosset was born 13 June 1876 at 6 St Martin's Hill in Canterbury, Kent, England^[1] and christened 9 July 1876 at St Martin's in Canterbury^[2]. He was the first child of Frederic Gosset (1848-1942) and Agnes Sealy Vidal (1851-1938). At the time William was born, his father was a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers residing at the infantry barracks on Northgate Street, Canterbury.

William became a scholar at Winchester College (1889-1895) and obtained a scholarship for New College, Oxford where he studied chemistry and mathematics. He was awarded his mathematics degree in 1897 and his chemistry degree in 1899, obtaining firsts in both.

Career

After graduating from Oxford, William became a Brewer with Arthur Guinness, Son & Co. Limited and he remained with the firm for the whole of his working life. In October 1899, he joined the St James's Gate Brewery in Dublin as a junior brewer and spent the first 2 years learning his duties under senior brewers in every department. Guinness had decided to introduce scientific methods into brewing and appointed men with First Class science degrees from Oxford or Cambridge to positions in junior management. They were employed as chemists and soon were put in charge of a section and began their research.

As they got involved in research in their brewers' and chemists' laboratories, new facilities were soon made available to them: in 1900, a new Guinness Research laboratory was opened; in 1901, an experimental malthouse was built at St James' Gate; and in 1903, an experimental brewery was also opened there. Half a dozen energetic bright researchers explored the whole subject of brewing in which they had no previous experience. They encountered major problems in taking account of the high variation in interpreting the few observations they obtained from their research.

It was William that the young brewers took their numerical problems and so these statistical problems came to him. He thus studied the theory of errors and in 1903 he could calculate standard errors. In 1904 he wrote a report on the subject for the brewery titled "The application of the 'law of error' to the work of the Brewery" and this led him being sent to consult Karl Pearson in July 1905. Guinness then arranged for William to spend the academic year of 1906/1907 in Pearson's department at University College, London to study the law of error.

William returned to Guinness in 1907, to become Brewer-in-Charge of the Experimental Brewery for the following 7 years. In his spare time in 1908, he prepared his papers on the probable error of the mean and of the correlation coefficient for publication. Guinness had earlier agreed to permit publication but they then decided that brewer's names should not appear. So William took the pseudonym Student. He published his most famous paper titled The probable error of a mean in 1908 but it was ignored until Ronald Fisher included it in his 1925 book Statistical Methods for Research Workers which introduced his methods to a wider audience.

From 1922 William acquired a statistical assistant at the brewery, and he slowly built up a small statistics department which he ran until 1934. In October 1934, William began to give all his attention to the new Guinness Brewery at Park Royal in North West London, and at the end of 1935 he left Dublin to take up his appointment as Head Brewer, in charge of the more scientific part of the production. He was to become Master Brewer of Guinness for a couple of months before his death in 1937.

William corresponded with a large number of statisticians and when visiting his father in Watlington, Oxfordshire would also visit University College, London, and the Rothamsted Agricultural Experiment Station. In 1933, the Royal Statistical Society formed an Industrial and Agricultural Research Section to which William contributed to its meetings when he was elected to the Society in 1934.

Residences

1881 Census of England & Wales: 3rd April 1881
Residence: 9 Molesworth Terrace, Stoke Damerel in Devonport, Devon, England ^[3]

1891 Census of England & Wales: 5th April 1891
Boarding House: St Mary's College in Winchester, Hampshire, England^[4]

1901 Census of Ireland: 31st March 1901
Residence: 83 James's Street, Ushers Quay, Dublin, Ireland^[5]

After marrying, they lived first in Dublin, and then rented a furnished house in Wimbledon from September 1906 to the spring of 1907 while William was attending lectures and tutorials given by Karl Pearson at University College London. They returned to Dublin in 1907.

1911 Census of Ireland: 2nd April 1911
Residence: Woodpark, Stillorgan, Dublin, Ireland^[6]

William, his wife and family lived in Blackrock, Dublin on the coast of Dublin Bay, initially at Woodlands on Rochestown Avenue, Woodpark (1909-1915) and then Holly Park House in Hollypark (1915-1935). They then moved back to England and lived at Davan Hollow in Denham, Buckinghamshire.

Publications

William published most of his scientific papers under the pseudonym 'Student' and they were re-issued in a single volume after his death:

GOSSET, W. S., Pearson, E. S., & Wishart, J. (1943). "Student's" Collected Papers. Edited by E.S. Pearson and John Wishart, etc. Biometrika Office, University College: London.

William Sealy Gosset's most famous scientific paper.

Marriage and Family

William married Marjory Surtees Phillpotts (1879 - 1965) on 16 January 1906 at St James in Tunbridge Wells, Kent^[7]. William and Marjory had 3 children:

1. Isaac Henry Gosset (1907^[8] - 1965)
2. Marion Bertha Gosset (1908 - 2001)
3. Ruth Helen Gosset (1911 - 1953)

Announcement of the marriage from the North Devon (Bideford) Gazette of 23 January 1906:

"Marriages. GOSSET - PHILLPOTTS. - On the 16th January, at St. James', Tunbridge Wells, by the very Rev the Dean of Wells and the Rev S B Phillpotts, uncles of the bride, assisted by the vicar, Canon Scott, William Sealy, eldest son of Colonel Gosset, R.E., of Watlington, Oxon, to Marjory Surtees, youngest daughter of J S Phillpotts, of The Ousels, Tunbridge Wells, formerly headmaster of Bedford School."

Marjory was the sister of Geoffrey Phillpotts who started as a new brewer with Guinness several months after William in January 1900 and both shared the Guinness house for unmarried brewers at St. James' Gate becoming close friends due to their common interest in outdoor pursuits. Marjory herself was a notable hockey player having captained the national teams of both England and Ireland at different times in her career.

Death

William suffered a heart attack and died 16 October 1937 at St Joseph's Nursing Home, Candlemas Lane in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire^[9].

He is commemorated by plaques in the Barley Room at Guinness Storehouse, St James's Gate, Dublin where he worked; at St Patrick's Boys' National School, Hollypark in Blackrock, Co. Dublin near where he lived for about 20 years; and a blue plaque in Canterbury, Kent near where he was born.

The statistician Sir Ronald Fisher described William Sealy Gosset as “the Faraday of statistics”, recognising his ability to grasp general principles and apply them to problems of practical significance. His tribute to him in 1939 was:

His life was one full of fruitful scientific ideas and his versatility extended beyond his interests in research. In spite of his many activities it is the student of Students’s test of significance who has won, and deserved to win, a unique place in the history of scientific method.

Sources

1. ↑ "England & Wales General Register Office: GRO birth index records" [database], GRO (GRO Online Index Search : viewed 7 Feb 2021), entry for Gosset, William Sealy (Mother's Maiden Name: DIDAL), GRO Reference: 1876  S Quarter in CANTERBURY  Volume 02A  Page 752
2. ↑ "England, Kent, Canterbury Parish Registers, 1538-1986," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QGNV-S8XV : 12 March 2020), William Sealy Gosset, 9 Jul 1876; from " Kent, Canterbury Archdeaconry Parish Registers Browse, 1538-1913," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d); citing Baptism, Canterbury St Martin, Kent, England, United Kingdom, Citing Canterbury Cathedral Archives, England
3. ↑ "England and Wales Census, 1881," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q27X-7PL1 : 13 December 2017), William L Gosset in household of Frederick Gosset, Devonport Stoke-Damerel, Devon, England; from "1881 England, Scotland and Wales Census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing p. 22, Piece/Folio 2212/9, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey; FHL microfilm 101,774,780
4. ↑ "England and Wales Census, 1891," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:47JF-HMM : 25 November 2020), William S Gossett, St. Michael, Glamorgan, Wales, United Kingdom; from "1891 England, Scotland and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO RG 12, Hampshire county, subdistrict, The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey
5. ↑ Census of Ireland for 1901 (Household Return Image : viewed 7 Feb 2021
6. ↑ Census of Ireland for 1911 (Household Return Image : viewed 8 Feb 2021
7. ↑ "England and Wales Marriage Registration Index, 1837-2005," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2DC2-9H4 : 13 December 2014), William Sealy Gosset, 1906; from "England & Wales Marriages, 1837-2005," database, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : 2012); citing 1906, quarter 1, vol. 2A, p. 1099, Tonbridge, Kent, England, General Register Office, Southport, England
8. ↑ "England & Wales General Register Office: GRO birth index records" [database], GRO (GRO Online Index Search : viewed 7 Feb 2021), entry for Gosset, Isaac Henry (Mother's Maiden Name: Phillpotts), GRO Reference: 1907 M Quarter in KINGSTON  Volume 02A  Page 421
9. ↑ "England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations)" [database on-line], GOV.UK ([1] : viewed 7 Feb 2021), Entry for William Sealy Gosset (1938), Page 622; from Wills and Probate 1858-1996

See Also:

• Wikipedia: William Sealy Gosset
• Wikidata: Item Q334375, en:Wikipedia
• Pearson, E. S. (1939). "Student" as statistician. Biometrika, 30(3/4), 210. doi:10.2307/2332648
• McMullen, L. (1939). "Student" as a man. Biometrika, 30(3/4), 205. doi:10.2307/2332647
• Boland, Philip. (1984). A Biographical Glimpse of William Sealy Gosset. Irish Mathematical Society Newsletter. 8. 10.1080/00031305.1984.10483195.
• Box, J. F. (1987). Guinness, Gosset, Fisher, and small samples. Statistical Science, 2(1), 45-52. doi:10.1214/ss/1177013437
• Pearson, E. S., & Plackett, R. L. (1990). Student: A statistical biography of William Sealy Gosset. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Ziliak, S. T. (2008). Retrospectives: GUINNESSOMETRICS: The economic foundation of “Student's” t. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 22(4), 199-216. doi:10.1257/jep.22.4.199
• Gosset, William Sealy (known as ‘STUDENT’) (1876–1937). (2018). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/odnb/9780192683120.013.33483