Pearson , Egon Sharpe , 1895-1980 , statistician

Egon Sharpe Pearson was born in Hampstead, London, in 1895, the middle child of Karl Pearson and his wife Maria Sharpe. He was educated at Winchester College and Cambridge University, graduating in 1920 and joined his father's Department of Applied Statistics at University College London in 1921 becoming assistant editor of Biometrika, the statistical journal co-founded by Karl Pearson, in 1924. In 1933 Pearson succeeded his father as Head of Department at UCL; three years later, when Karl Pearson died, he also became Managing Editor of Biometrika.

In 1930, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS). During a visit to the USA in 1931, Pearson met Walter Shewart of the Bell Telephone Laboratory with whom he discussed quality control in industry. The following year he presented a paper to the RSS on industrial applications of statistics which led directly to the formation of the Industrial and Agricultural Research Section (IARS) of the Society. He was on the Council of the RSS from 1934 to 1951, serving as Vice-President in 1945/6 and again in 1947/8 and was elected President for 1955-1957.

He married in 1934 and had two children; his wife died in 1949. Pearson died in 1980.