George L. EDGETT, 1900-1986

George Edgett studied mathematics at Mount Allison University where he received a Bachelor of Arts in 1923 and a Master of Arts in 1926. He obtained his PhD in 1936 from the University of Illinois, where he became interested in the Pearsonian system of probability density functions. Edgett joined the Department of Mathematics at Queen’s University in 1930 and in 1933 taught the first statistics course ever offered by a Mathematics Department in Canada. ln the thirties and forties he developed bachelor’s and master’s programs in statistics and directed many master’s students who went on to complete a PhD in statistics. ln the late forties Edgett developed statistics courses at Queen’s for engineering students and, in the fifties, statistics courses for medical and graduate students. He also gave short courses for industry on Quality Control and Analysis of Variance. ln the summer of 1951 he gave a series of lectures on Mathematical Statistics organized by the Canadian Mathematical Congress. His continuing pressure for a Statistical Laboratory at Queen’s finally resulted in the establishment in 1973 of the Queen’s Statlab which, in 1979, was renamed the George L. Edgett Statistical Laboratory. He is currently [1980] Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Queen’s University and a Fellow of the American Statistical Association. Professor Edgett was one of the first academic statisticians in Canada and he produced many professional statisticians during his long and active career.