Arthur Lyon Bowley
Encyclopedia
Sir Arthur Lyon Bowley was an English
statistician
and economist
who worked on economic statistics and pioneered the use of sampling techniques in social surveys.
Bowley's father, James William Lyon Bowley, was a minister in the Church of England
. He died in 1870 when Arthur was under two, leaving Arthur's mother as mother or stepmother to seven children. Arthur was educated at a well-known school, Christ's Hospital
. After a successful career there he won a major scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge
to study mathematics. He graduated as Tenth Wrangler.
At Cambridge Bowley had a short course of study with the economist Alfred Marshall
who had also been a Cambridge wrangler. Under Marshall's influence Bowley became an economic statistician. His Account of England's Foreign Trade won the Cobden Essay Prize and was published as a book. Marshall watched over Bowley’s career, recommending him for jobs and offering him advice. Most notoriously Marshall told him the Elements of Statistics contained “too much mathematics.”
After leaving Cambridge Bowley taught mathematics at St John's School
in Leatherhead
from 1893 to 1899. Meanwhile he was publishing in economic statistics; his first article for the journal of the Royal Statistical Society
) appeared in 1895. In that year the London School of Economics
opened. Bowley was appointed as a part-time lecturer and he would be connected with the School until he retired in 1936. He can be considered one of the School's intellectual fathers. However, he continued to teach elsewhere; for more than a decade he taught at University College, Reading (now the University of Reading
). He was the Newmarch
lecturer at University College, London (1897–98 and 1927–28). At the LSE he became Reader
in 1908, and Professor in 1915. In 1919 he was appointed to a newly established Chair of Statistics, probably the first of its kind in Britain. In Bowley's time, however, the LSE statistics group was very small: E. C. Rhodes
arrived in 1924 and R. G. D. Allen
in 1928
Bowley produced a stream of studies of British economic statistics, beginning in the 1890s with work on trade and on wages and income, and proceeding to studies of national income in the 1920s and –30s. Specially noteworthy was his collaboration with Josiah Stamp
on a comparison of the UK national income in 1911 and 1924. (Official national income statistics date only from the Second World War.) From around 1910 Bowley worked on social statistics as well. In aim, the work was a continuation of such surveys of social conditions as Charles Booth’s "Life and Labour of the People in London" (1889–1903) and Seebohm Rowntree's
"Poverty, A Study of Town Life" (1901). The methodological innovation was the use of sampling techniques. Bowley gave a detailed exposition of his approach to sampling in a 62 page paper published in 1926. The culmination of Bowley's work on social surveys was the monumental New Survey of London Life and Labour. Even in the 1930s his research could take a new direction, as when he collaborated with his junior colleague R. G. D. Allen
on an econometric study of family expenditure.
The Elements of Statistics is generally regarded as the first English-language statistics text-book. It described the techniques of descriptive statistics that would be useful for economists and social sciences, and in the early editions contained rather little statistical theory. That changed in the enlarged 4th edition of 1920. In statistical theory Bowley was no innovator but drew on the writings of Karl Pearson
, Udny Yule
and, most importantly, F. Y. Edgeworth
. Bowley paid tribute to the master by trying to make his contributions accessible but his 1928 book is possibly more impenetrable than the original. In the 1930s Bowley played the reactionary, informing Fisher
that "Professor Edgeworth had written a great deal on a kindred subject" and slapping Neyman down with "I am not at all sure that the 'confidence' [in confidence interval] is not a 'confidence trick.'"
Bowley's teaching presaged several of the EDA
ideas later popularised by John Tukey
, including stemplot
s, decile boxplots, the seven-figure summary and trimean
.
Bowley's Mathematical Groundwork of Economics was a notable attempt to provide the practising economist (rather than the beginner) with the main ideas and techniques of mathematical economics; it was the first book in English of its kind. One of its successes was to bring the Edgeworth box
to the attention of economists generally. Bowley was so successful that this is often referred to as the "Edgeworth-Bowley box".
Bowley received many honours. In 1922 he became Fellow of the British Academy and in 1950 he was knighted. He served on the council of the Royal Economic Society
and was president of the Econometric Society
1938-9. The Royal Statistical Society
awarded him its Guy Medal
in Gold in 1935 and he served as its president 1938-40 .
According to Allen and George, "In personality Bowley was somewhat shy and retiring. He did not readily make friends and his close friendship with Edwin Cannan
over many years was an almost unique experience." They recall an anecdote about an occasion when Bowley and Cannan were cycling with Edgeworth. When Edgeworth wanted to discuss a mathematical question Cannan said, “Bowley, let us go a little faster, Edgeworth cannot talk mathematics at more than eight miles an hour.”
His daughter Marian Bowley
also made an academic career in economics.
, which says that the proportion of GNP
from labor is constant.
There is an extensive bibliography in Allen and George (1957).
The New School entry has a photograph. There is another at
In the 4th edition of the Elements (1920) Bowley gave a lot more space to statistical theory. The following excerpt illustrates his approach
This was written just before Bowley got involved in the controversy between Fisher and Pearson on chi-squared. In the fifth edition (1926) Bowley added a reference to his own contribution.
For Bowley's contribution to sampling theory put in historical perspective see
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
statistician
Statistician
A statistician is someone who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. The core of that work is to measure, interpret, and describe the world and human activity patterns within it...
and economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
who worked on economic statistics and pioneered the use of sampling techniques in social surveys.
Bowley's father, James William Lyon Bowley, was a minister in the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
. He died in 1870 when Arthur was under two, leaving Arthur's mother as mother or stepmother to seven children. Arthur was educated at a well-known school, Christ's Hospital
Christ's Hospital
Christ's Hospital is an English coeducational independent day and boarding school with Royal Charter located in the Sussex countryside just south of Horsham in Horsham District, West Sussex, England...
. After a successful career there he won a major scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
to study mathematics. He graduated as Tenth Wrangler.
At Cambridge Bowley had a short course of study with the economist Alfred Marshall
Alfred Marshall
Alfred Marshall was an Englishman and one of the most influential economists of his time. His book, Principles of Economics , was the dominant economic textbook in England for many years...
who had also been a Cambridge wrangler. Under Marshall's influence Bowley became an economic statistician. His Account of England's Foreign Trade won the Cobden Essay Prize and was published as a book. Marshall watched over Bowley’s career, recommending him for jobs and offering him advice. Most notoriously Marshall told him the Elements of Statistics contained “too much mathematics.”
After leaving Cambridge Bowley taught mathematics at St John's School
St. John's School, Leatherhead
St. John's School, Leatherhead is a public school in Surrey, England. It has about 420 male pupils and 60 female pupils, and from 2010 it will be fully co-educational....
in Leatherhead
Leatherhead
Leatherhead is a town in the County of Surrey, England, on the River Mole, part of Mole Valley district. It is thought to be of Saxon origin...
from 1893 to 1899. Meanwhile he was publishing in economic statistics; his first article for the journal of the Royal Statistical Society
Royal Statistical Society
The Royal Statistical Society is a learned society for statistics and a professional body for statisticians in the UK.-History:It was founded in 1834 as the Statistical Society of London , though a perhaps unrelated London Statistical Society was in existence at least as early as 1824...
) appeared in 1895. In that year the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
opened. Bowley was appointed as a part-time lecturer and he would be connected with the School until he retired in 1936. He can be considered one of the School's intellectual fathers. However, he continued to teach elsewhere; for more than a decade he taught at University College, Reading (now the University of Reading
University of Reading
The University of Reading is a university in the English town of Reading, Berkshire. The University was established in 1892 as University College, Reading and received its Royal Charter in 1926. It is based on several campuses in, and around, the town of Reading.The University has a long tradition...
). He was the Newmarch
William Newmarch
William Newmarch was a Yorkshireman, English banker, economist and statistician born at Thirsk, Yorkshire.He took his schooling at York, and, as a young man, held some clerkly appointments in that city...
lecturer at University College, London (1897–98 and 1927–28). At the LSE he became Reader
Reader (academic rank)
The title of Reader in the United Kingdom and some universities in the Commonwealth nations like Australia and New Zealand denotes an appointment for a senior academic with a distinguished international reputation in research or scholarship...
in 1908, and Professor in 1915. In 1919 he was appointed to a newly established Chair of Statistics, probably the first of its kind in Britain. In Bowley's time, however, the LSE statistics group was very small: E. C. Rhodes
E. C. Rhodes
Edmund Cecil Rhodes , a statistician, was born in Yorkshire and named after Cecil Rhodes. He went to Bradford Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge where he graduated as Wrangler in 1914. In 1924 he became Reader at the London School of Economics where he remained until he retired in 1958...
arrived in 1924 and R. G. D. Allen
R. G. D. Allen
Sir Roy George Douglas Allen, CBE, FBA was an English economist, mathematician and statistician.Allen was born in Worcester and educated at the Royal Grammar School Worcester, from which he won a scholarship to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge...
in 1928
Bowley produced a stream of studies of British economic statistics, beginning in the 1890s with work on trade and on wages and income, and proceeding to studies of national income in the 1920s and –30s. Specially noteworthy was his collaboration with Josiah Stamp
Josiah Stamp, 1st Baron Stamp
Josiah Charles Stamp, 1st Baron Stamp, Bt, GCB, GBE, FBA, was a British civil servant, industrialist, economist, statistician, writer, and banker. He was a director of the Bank of England and chairman of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway.Josiah was born in London, the third of seven...
on a comparison of the UK national income in 1911 and 1924. (Official national income statistics date only from the Second World War.) From around 1910 Bowley worked on social statistics as well. In aim, the work was a continuation of such surveys of social conditions as Charles Booth’s "Life and Labour of the People in London" (1889–1903) and Seebohm Rowntree's
Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree
Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree, CH, often known simply as Seebohm Rowntree was a British sociological researcher, social reformer and industrialist.-Life:...
"Poverty, A Study of Town Life" (1901). The methodological innovation was the use of sampling techniques. Bowley gave a detailed exposition of his approach to sampling in a 62 page paper published in 1926. The culmination of Bowley's work on social surveys was the monumental New Survey of London Life and Labour. Even in the 1930s his research could take a new direction, as when he collaborated with his junior colleague R. G. D. Allen
R. G. D. Allen
Sir Roy George Douglas Allen, CBE, FBA was an English economist, mathematician and statistician.Allen was born in Worcester and educated at the Royal Grammar School Worcester, from which he won a scholarship to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge...
on an econometric study of family expenditure.
The Elements of Statistics is generally regarded as the first English-language statistics text-book. It described the techniques of descriptive statistics that would be useful for economists and social sciences, and in the early editions contained rather little statistical theory. That changed in the enlarged 4th edition of 1920. In statistical theory Bowley was no innovator but drew on the writings of Karl Pearson
Karl Pearson
Karl Pearson FRS was an influential English mathematician who has been credited for establishing the disciplineof mathematical statistics....
, Udny Yule
Udny Yule
George Udny Yule FRS , usually known as Udny Yule, was a British statistician, born at Beech Hill, a house in Morham near Haddington, Scotland and died in Cambridge, England. His father, also George Udny Yule, and a nephew, were knighted. His uncle was the noted orientalist Sir Henry Yule...
and, most importantly, F. Y. Edgeworth
Francis Ysidro Edgeworth
Francis Ysidro Edgeworth FBA was an Irish philosopher and political economist who made significant contributions to the methods of statistics during the 1880s...
. Bowley paid tribute to the master by trying to make his contributions accessible but his 1928 book is possibly more impenetrable than the original. In the 1930s Bowley played the reactionary, informing Fisher
Ronald Fisher
Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher FRS was an English statistician, evolutionary biologist, eugenicist and geneticist. Among other things, Fisher is well known for his contributions to statistics by creating Fisher's exact test and Fisher's equation...
that "Professor Edgeworth had written a great deal on a kindred subject" and slapping Neyman down with "I am not at all sure that the 'confidence' [in confidence interval] is not a 'confidence trick.'"
Bowley's teaching presaged several of the EDA
Exploratory data analysis
In statistics, exploratory data analysis is an approach to analysing data sets to summarize their main characteristics in easy-to-understand form, often with visual graphs, without using a statistical model or having formulated a hypothesis...
ideas later popularised by John Tukey
John Tukey
John Wilder Tukey ForMemRS was an American statistician.- Biography :Tukey was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1915, and obtained a B.A. in 1936 and M.Sc. in 1937, in chemistry, from Brown University, before moving to Princeton University where he received a Ph.D...
, including stemplot
Stemplot
A stemplot , in statistics, is a device for presenting quantitative data in a graphical format, similar to a histogram, to assist in visualizing the shape of a distribution. They evolved from Arthur Bowley's work in the early 1900s, and are useful tools in exploratory data analysis...
s, decile boxplots, the seven-figure summary and trimean
Trimean
In statistics the trimean , or Tukey's trimean, is a measure of a probability distribution's location defined as a weighted average of the distribution's median and its two quartiles:This is equivalent to the average of the median and the midhinge:...
.
Bowley's Mathematical Groundwork of Economics was a notable attempt to provide the practising economist (rather than the beginner) with the main ideas and techniques of mathematical economics; it was the first book in English of its kind. One of its successes was to bring the Edgeworth box
Edgeworth box
In economics, an Edgeworth box, named after Francis Ysidro Edgeworth, is a way of representing various distributions of resources. Edgeworth made his presentation in his book Mathematical Psychics: An Essay on the Application of Mathematics to the Moral Sciences, 1881...
to the attention of economists generally. Bowley was so successful that this is often referred to as the "Edgeworth-Bowley box".
Bowley received many honours. In 1922 he became Fellow of the British Academy and in 1950 he was knighted. He served on the council of the Royal Economic Society
Royal Economic Society
The Royal Economic Society is incorporated by a Royal Charter dated 2 December 1902. It is one of the oldest economic associations in the world. Currently it has over 3,300 individual members, of whom 60% live outside the United Kingdom...
and was president of the Econometric Society
Econometric Society
The Econometric Society is an international society for the advancement of economic theory in its relation with statistics and mathematics. It was founded on December 29, 1930 at the Stalton Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio....
1938-9. The Royal Statistical Society
Royal Statistical Society
The Royal Statistical Society is a learned society for statistics and a professional body for statisticians in the UK.-History:It was founded in 1834 as the Statistical Society of London , though a perhaps unrelated London Statistical Society was in existence at least as early as 1824...
awarded him its Guy Medal
Guy Medal
The Guy Medals are awarded by the Royal Statistical Society in three categories; Gold, Silver and Bronze. The Gold Medal is awarded triennially, the other two are awarded annually...
in Gold in 1935 and he served as its president 1938-40 .
According to Allen and George, "In personality Bowley was somewhat shy and retiring. He did not readily make friends and his close friendship with Edwin Cannan
Edwin Cannan
Edwin Cannan was a British economist and historian of economic thought. He was a professor at the London School of Economics from 1895 to 1926....
over many years was an almost unique experience." They recall an anecdote about an occasion when Bowley and Cannan were cycling with Edgeworth. When Edgeworth wanted to discuss a mathematical question Cannan said, “Bowley, let us go a little faster, Edgeworth cannot talk mathematics at more than eight miles an hour.”
His daughter Marian Bowley
Marian Bowley
Marian Bowley was an economist and historian of economic thought. She was the daughter of the economist and statistician Arthur Bowley....
also made an academic career in economics.
Bowley's law
Bowley formulated Bowley's lawBowley's law
Bowley's law is an observation in econometrics that the proportion of Gross National Product from labor is constant. It is named for Arthur Bowley, the statistician who first observed it. It was first observed based on economic data in Britain from the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
, which says that the proportion of GNP
GNP
Gross National Product is the market value of all products and services produced in one year by labor and property supplied by the residents of a country...
from labor is constant.
Main publications of A. L. Bowley
(1345)- A Short Account of England's Foreign Trade in the Nineteenth Century, 1893.
- Wages and Income in the United Kingdom Since 1860, 1900.
- Elements of Statistics, 1901. (4th edition in 1920)
- An Elementary Manual of Statistics, 1909.
- Livelihood and Poverty: a study in the economic conditions of working-class households, with A.R. Bennett-Hurst, 1915.
- The Division of the Product of Industry, 1919
- The Mathematical Groundwork of Economics, 1924.
- Has Poverty Diminished? with M.Hogg, 1925.
- Measurement of Precision attained in Sampling, Bulletin de l'Institut International de Statistique,(1926) 22, Suppl. to Book 1, 1-62. Gallica (after p. 451)
- The National Income 1924 with J. StampJosiah Stamp, 1st Baron StampJosiah Charles Stamp, 1st Baron Stamp, Bt, GCB, GBE, FBA, was a British civil servant, industrialist, economist, statistician, writer, and banker. He was a director of the Bank of England and chairman of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway.Josiah was born in London, the third of seven...
, 1927. - Bilateral Monopoly, 1928, Economic Journal.
- F. Y. Edgeworth's Contributions to Mathematical Statistics, 1928.
- New Survey of London Life and Labour, 1930-35.
- Family Expenditure with R.G.D. Allen, 1935.
- Three Studies in National Income, 1939.
There is an extensive bibliography in Allen and George (1957).
Discussions
- Allen, R.D.G. and George R. F. (1957) Obituary of Professor Sir Arthur Bowley. Journal of the Royal Statistical SocietyJournal of the Royal Statistical SocietyThe Journal of the Royal Statistical Society is a series of three peer-reviewed statistics journals published by Blackwell Publishing for the London-based Royal Statistical Society.- History :...
, A, 102, 236-241. - W F Maunder and Sir Arthur Lyon Bowley (1869–1957) in Studies in the History of Statistics Probability, (ed. E S Pearson and M G Kendall) 1970. London: Griffin.
- Darnell, A. (1981) A.L. Bowley, 1969-1957, pp. 140–174 in Pioneers of Modern Economics in Britain, (ed. D.P. O'Brien and J.R. Presley) 1981. London: Macmillan.
- Bowley, Arthur Lyon, pp. 277–9 in Leading Personalities in Statistical Sciences from the Seventeenth Century to the Present, (ed. N. L. JohnsonNorman Lloyd JohnsonNorman Lloyd Johnson was a professor of statistics and author or editor of several standard reference works in statistics and probability theory.-Education:...
and S. Kotz)Samuel KotzSamuel Kotz was a Professor and Research Scholar in the Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Science at The George Washington University since 1997 until his death on March 16, 2010...
1997. New York: Wiley. Originally published in Encyclopedia of Statistical Science.
External links
- Horizons March 2005: Stats in History—Arthurian Legend
- Bowley Papers at the LSE Archives
- New School: Arthur Lyon Bowley
The New School entry has a photograph. There is another at
- Bowley on the Portraits of Statisticians page.
In the 4th edition of the Elements (1920) Bowley gave a lot more space to statistical theory. The following excerpt illustrates his approach
This was written just before Bowley got involved in the controversy between Fisher and Pearson on chi-squared. In the fifth edition (1926) Bowley added a reference to his own contribution.
For Bowley's contribution to sampling theory put in historical perspective see