Florence Nightingale
In his history of Oxford statistics written to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Department of Statistics in 2013, Professor John Gittins notes:
Florence Nightingale, the pioneer of modern nursing, following her experiences during the Crimean war, was also an enthusiast for statistical methods.
In the 1870s, she discussed the possibility with her friend Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol College, of endowing a Professorship of Statistics in Oxford to which they both agreed to contribute, and later further discussed the idea with Francis Galton, another pioneer of applied statistics. Writing to Galton in 1891, she suggested that the professorship should address the need for statistics relating to education, penology, workhouses and India. In his response, Galton stressed the importance of the new professor doing research as well as teaching, and also questioned the suitability of Oxford as the home for this venture. Neither comment blended well with Miss Nightingale’s vision and, partly for these reasons, sadly the proposal foundered (Gittins 2013: 4).Nevertheless, the Department of Statistics at Oxford now has a Florence Nightingale Bicentennial Fellowship and Tutor in Statistics and Probability as well as a Florence Nightingale Lecture: 2020 being her bicentenary may see other forms of recognition. Her role in statistics is not as well known as that in nursing, but Nightingale was a pioneer in using graphical presentations of statistical data, such as the pie chart, to convey persuasive messages. She is credited with developing the polar-area diagram (which she called a “coxcomb”) to illustrate seasonal mortality in the Crimean War hospital she managed (see Nightingale 1858: 310-311). Nightingale was elected the first female member of the Royal Statistical Society in 1859 and became an Honorary Member of the American Statistical Association in 1874.
2.3