Historian Lawrence Goldman of Oxford University gave an in-person talk on “Victorians and Numbers” to the History of Statistics Section at Errol Street on 29 September 2022, referring to his recent book of the same name.
Professor Goldman explained that early Victorian statistics was about social administration; there was a revolution in the use of numbers. An avalanche of data was generated by the administrative reforms of the period and for a long time the statisticians were “environmentalists”, looking to analysis of the data for answers to social and health problems. There was a prevailing belief in human equality. William Farr hoped that the investigations would suggest ways of preventing cholera epidemics. In fact this was very premature: the solution had to wait for Robert Koch’s bacteriological work in Germany much later.
The Statistical Society of London, the forerunner of the RSS, was founded; initially it met in Charles Babbage’s house. Similar societies were founded in several other cities and there was also Section F of the British Association. Incidentally, another Statistical Society of London was founded around the same time for artisans by the radicals John Powell and John Gast. Later there was more focus on an intellectual revolution in statistics. Believers in the use of statistics to solve social problems were criticised, even ridiculed, by some important thinkers: Ruskin, Carlyle, Dickens (in The Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything, parodying the British Association).
Most of the prominent statisticians attended the International Statistics Conference in London in 1860. This marked the beginning of the development of mathematical statistics. After that there was a decline in recognition of the importance of statistics, associated with the rise of nationalism, particularly under the German Empire set up by Bismarck. Meanwhile, Sir John Simon as the government’s Chief Medical Officer found difficulties created by a new age of austerity. Also later, there were difficulties associated with the increasing influence of Francis Galton. His ideas were rather anti-social; he assaulted the conventional statistics establishment and showed hostility towards the British Association, Florence Nightingale and Charles Booth. He stimulated interest in the statistics of inheritance and looked to a generally hierarchical society.
In discussion there came a call to look at similar attitudes to data going right back to mediaeval times. Also, comments on the drive towards more “professionalism” among statisticians. British statisticians were particularly wary of being co-opted by the state; in most other countries, nearly all statisticians were state employees.
Written by the History Section’s meetings secretary Peter Smith