Related to K. Pearson, Appeal for Funds to maintain and extend The Institute of Applied Statistics, including the Biometric Laboratory and the Galton Laboratory for Eugenics, University of London (1924).
Description:

'At the present time, the demand for trained statisticians in government departments, in municipal and mercantile offices, especially for trained medical statisticians, is much beyond the supply. A training-school for such men and women, in direct contact with research work on social and medical problems, is essential. But, if this training is to be effective, it must be built on both mathematical and medical experience...

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While the Institute of Applied Statistics was first in the field, it has been rapidly followed by foundations covering to a great extent the same ground not only in America, but in some of the chief states of Europe... Thus scheme is not a novel one, it is precisely that which the Galton Laboratory has for many years endeavoured to carry out, but largely failed to do owing to the lack of adequate funds.

The following notes give a more detailed account of what the Institute possesses and what it needs in each of the main branches of its work.

I. Anthropometry. We have a small anthropometric laboratory, which could be expanded with great advantage, bit there are no funds available for its upkeep or for the purchase of new instruments or material. For the past two years we have retained an anthropologist on the staff at the salary of £350, but only by not replacing a badly needed member of the mathematical section, which has meant a corresponding loss on that side. There ought to be a Reader in Anthropometry with general control of Anthropometric work: his salary ought to be such that he could look forward to his life in the Institute, and there ought to be funds for providing the necessary instruments, which we especially need for the ophthalmic work we have in hand.

Sum required £1,000.

II. Experimental work on Heredity. The experimental work here should be such as relates to heredity in man. For example, such a study as is now being conducted on the heredity of cataract in mice. The present annual expenditure depends upon a grant of £200, which fails to cover food for the animals and service. There is no fund to pay a trained biologist who is needed for microscopic work, and the accommodation for animal breeding is absurd, it is an old stable, unsuited to its purpose and improperly fitted from the sanitary aspect. A properly designed and well-fitted Animal House is an urgent necessity. The salaries of a trained superintendent with proper assistants and funds for upkeep, would demand something of the order of £1,000.

Need £1,000.

III. Museum. There is a museum for exhibits bearing on Anthropology, Heredity and Applied Statistics. There are no funds for upkeep, for the purchase of material or for the payment of a trained attendant.

Need £400.

IV. Library. The total fund for this is only £80 per annum. We have had to give up several Journal series since the war and others remain unbound. The Library should be a complete library of Statistics and Heredity, which are not at all well represented in the College or University Libraries. We have also no Librarian. An additional expenditure of at least £150 on books and £250 on the salary of a Librarian is needed.

Need £400.

Small as the Library is it has already outgrown its space and additional accommodation is badly needed. There is only space for two persons to read in the present room.

V. Staff. The most urgent need at the present time is a Salary Fund adequate to maintain not only a reasonable number of workers, but to retain them. At present, no sooner is a scientist trained for our work, than he is compelled to leave us on account of the smallness of the salaries paid. At present, putting aside the Director (paid from the Galton Endowment) and the Medical Officer (paid by the London County Council), the average salary of the seven members of the Staff is £285, and we are understaffed for the large possibilities there are for Social, Medical and Eugenic Statistical Investigation. The minimum need for increasing salaries and for additional staff may be placed at £1,500.

Need £1,500.

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[requests for Fellowships, Publication Fund, Investigation Fund [funding of fieldwork e.g. on eyesight of children]

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The above scheme of expenditure represents an additional expenditure of some £6,900 under the following heads:-

I. Anthropometry £1,000

II. Breeding Experiments £1,000

III. Museum £400

IV. Library £400

V. Placing Staff on a Sound Footing £1,500

VI. Two Fellowships for Travel £600

VII. Publication Fund £1,000

VIII. Investigation Fund £1,000

In addition there ought to be an extension of the buildings. In the first place a proper animal house ought to be built, apart from the main building. In the second, increasing accommodation is needed and could be obtained by completing the building as originally designed of the front (a) for the Library, (b) for laboratory work for the large elementary classes, which have numbered up to 35. We have three small rooms for practical work, which each seat 6 postgraduate students, but there is no room large enough to seat 25 to 35 students for practical work apart from the class-rooms which are very unsuited to demonstration work. This would also provide rooms for increased staff.

 

If we ask why statistics has become the order of the day throughout the world in this century, the answer must be that it is owing to the rapid development in the recent past of a new and sounder statistical theory. To the development of that theory the Institute of Applied Statistics at University College has contributed in a manner entirely out of proportion to its resources. The chief methods of anthropometry, craniometry, psychology and medicine owe their origin either to Francis Galton or to the laboratories started on his initiative. It is sad that the pioneer institute in this direction should remain in a crippled state of efficiency for want of funds, which it seems impossible under existing circumstances to raise in this country itself.

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Total required £200,000.’