William Brass

William Brass (5 September 1921 – 11 November 1999) was a Scottish demographer. He developed indirect methods for estimating mortality and fertility in populations with inaccurate or incomplete data, often dubbed "Brass methods" after him.

Early life and education Brass was born in Edinburgh, where he went to school at the Royal High School and earned a Master's degree in mathematics and natural philosophy from the University of Edinburgh in 1947; during the Second World War he served in the Royal Navy Scientific Service.

Career Brass's career as a demographer began in 1948 when he worked as a statistician, then as deputy director, for the East African Statistical Department in Nairobi, which collected and analysed data on Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika and Zanzibar. During his time there, the department conducted the first comprehensive census in East Africa, and Brass designed and analysed the East African Medical Survey. and the Australian National University, and chaired the working group on Kenya for the Committee on Population and Demography of the US National Academy of Sciences.

He also worked on population modelling and on British demography, for example analysing the role of female employment

Personal life and death Brass married Betty Topp in 1948; they had two daughters. He was incapacitated by a stroke in January 1997 until his death at Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire, in November 1999.