Ernest Charles Snow

Ernest Charles Snow CBE was born in Woodford, Essex on 12 March 1886. He was educated at East London College. In 1902 Snow won an Open Mathematical Scholarship at The Queen’s College, Oxford.

During the First World War, Snow worked as a statistician at the War Office and in 1919 became the manager and later the director of the United Tanners' Association.

During his tenure, he wrote several books and papers such as the 440-page volume "Leather, Hides, Skin and Tanning Material" in 1924.

Snow was awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the New Year Honours of 1938.

There are many articles by Snow published in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. One of his last (and the Presidential Address) was in 1944 – "The International Comparison of Industrial Output".

Snow died on 28 August 1959.

Early life

Snow was the son of Henry and Margaret Snow, of Woodford, Essex He was educated at East London College. In 1902 he acquired an Open Mathematical Scholarship at The Queen's College, Oxford. In 1905 he obtained a First Class in Moderations and in 1906 a First Class in the final Mathematics School.

In September 1907, Snow took up an appointment as full-time Lecturer in Mathematics at the Sir John Cass College. From 1912 to 1915, Snow was a part-time postgraduate student at University College. He engaged on research in association with Karl Pearson.

In 1915 Snow was asked by the War Office to assist temporarily with statistical work in the Allies' Commission Section of the Army Contracts Department. As his responsibilities at the War Office increased, his work at the College diminished until by mid-1918 he was lecturing only two or three evenings a week.

In addition to the papers to the Society, Snow also contributed papers to Biometrika such as "The Application of the Correlation Coefficient to Mendilian Distributions" and Proceedings, such as "The influence of selection and assortative mating on the ancestral and fraternal correlations of a mendelian population"

Snow also wrote several articles including "On the Magnitude of the Population of England and Wales Available for Emigration", "The Limits of Industrial Employment", "The Statistical Basis of Export Targets", "Some Statistical Problems Suggested by the Sickness and Mortality Data of Certain of the Large Friendly Societies", "Trade Forecasting and Prices", "The Application of the Method of Multiple Correlation to the Estimation of Post-Censal Populations", and "Note on the Future Population of the Self-Governing Portion of the British Empire".

John Aldrich (Economics Division. School of Social Sciences. University of Southampton) in his paper: "Mathematics in the London Royal Statistical Society 1834-1934" for the Journal Electronique d'Histoire des Probabilités et de la Statistique refers to Dr Snow's contributions over 30 times.

When Snow died on 28 August 1959, his obituary was published by the Royal Statistical Society.