Ernest S. KEEPING, 1895-1984

Ernest Keeping was trained in England in Mathematics and Physics, obtaining a BSc degree from the University of London in 1916, an Associateship from the Royal College of Science in 1916, and a Diploma from Imperial College London in 1917. He then studied with Harold Hotelling at The University of North Carolina. In 1929. he joined the Department of Mathematics of The University of Alberta where he pursued his career. In the early 1930s, Keeping developed an advanced level course in statistics, probably the first such course given in Canada, and wrote a textbook on statistical inference. He is a founding member of the Canadian Mathematical Congress (founded in 1945) and from 1954 until 1961 Keeping was Head of the Department of Mathematics at The University of Alberta, where he built up graduate studies in statistics. Appropriately, the first Ph.D. in that Department was in Mathematical Statistics. Keeping lectured until 1971 and is presently [1980] Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mathematics of The University of Alberta. ln 1972 he was awarded an honorary LL.D. from The University of Alberta. Ernest Keeping was a pioneer in academic statistics in Canada and his two-part textbook co-authored with J. F. Kenney Mathematics of Statistics (D. Van Nostrand, New York, 1939) was published in several editions. This textbook and Keeping’s Introduction to Statistical Inference (D. Van Nostrand, Princeton, N.J., 1962) have been helpful to many who have taught or studied statistics in Canada or abroad.