George A. Barnard
| George A. Barnard | |
|---|---|
| Born |
23 September 1915 Walthamstow, London |
| Died | 9 August 2002 (aged 86) |
| Nationality | British |
| Fields | Statistics |
| Institutions | University of London |
| Alma mater | Princeton University |
| Doctoral advisor | Alonzo Church |
| Doctoral students |
Dennis Lindley |
George Alfred Barnard (23 September 1915 – 9 August 2002) was a British statistician known particularly for his work on the foundations of statistics and on quality control.
George Barnard was born in Walthamstow, London. His father was a cabinet maker and his mother had been a domestic servant. George's sister Dorothy Wedderburn became a sociologist and eventually Principal of Royal Holloway, University of London. George attended the local grammar school, the Monoux School, and from there he won a scholarship to St John's College, Cambridge to read mathematics. In 1937 he went on to Princeton University to do graduate work on mathematical logic with Alonzo Church.
Barnard was on holiday in Britain when the Second World War started and he never went back to Princeton to finish his PhD. The war made Barnard into a statistician as it did for many mathematicians of his generation. In 1940 he joined an engineering firm, Plessey, as a mathematical consultant. In 1942 he moved to the Ministry of Supply to apply quality control and sampling methods to the products for which they were responsible. It was there that Barnard began doing statistics. The group he was put in charge of included Peter Armitage, Dennis Lindley and Robin Plackett. Lindley recalls that they were like students working for a doctorate with Barnard as supervisor. Abraham Wald was in a similar group in the United States. Both groups developed sequential methods of sampling.
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