Lancaster, Henry Oliver

Henry Oliver Lancaster AO

Born: 1 February 1913, Sydney, NSW

Died: 2 December 2001, Sydney

Family: Father, Llewellyn Bentley Lancaster, medical practitioner (dec. 1921); Mother, Edith Hulda Smith (3 sons, 1 daughter); (Llewellyn Lancaster had a son, Donald James Andrew Llewellyn Lancaster, from a previous marriage)

Married: 20 December 1940, Joyce Mellon (5 sons)

Education:
Private school conducted by Miss Jessie Smith, Kempsey, NSW
1922 West Kempsey Primary School (from 1923 Boarder, St Georges Hostel, West Kempsey)
West Kempsey High School (awarded bursary in first year)
Liversidge Scholarship
1930 University of Sydney (began as an evening student in Economics but, after four weeks, transferred to Arts as a full time student, at end of first year transferred to Medicine on a scholarship)
1937 MB BS
1945 University of Sydney, mathematics
1947 BA
1952 PhD (Science)
1966 MD
1971 DSc

Career:
4 weeks on the staff of the Mutual Life and Citizens company (evening course in economics)
1937 1939 Resident Medical Officer and Pathologist, Sydney Hospital
1940 Junior Fellowship in Medicine, Prince Henry Hospital, Little Bay, Sydney; Resident Pathologist, royal North Sydney Hospital
31 July 1940 April 1946 Pathologist (rank Captain and Major) in Royal Australian Medical Corps, Australian Imperial Force, served in the Middle East (one year) and New Guinea (two years)
1946 Lecturer, Medical Statistics, School of Public Health, University of Sydney
1948 Rockefeller Fellow in Medicine, London
1949 Secretary, Statistical Society of NSW
1952 1953 President, Statistical Society of NSW
1959 Associate Professor, Medical Statistics, School of Public Health, University of Sydney
1959 1978 Foundation Professor, Mathematical Statistics, University of Sydney
1961 Fellow, Australian Academy of Science; T.R. Lyle Medal for Physics and Mathematics, Australian Academy of Science
1962 Lyle Medal for mathematics and physics, Australian Academy of Science; Fellow, International Institute of Mathematical Statistics
1965 1966 President, Statistical Society of Australia
1966 1967 President, Australian Mathematical Society
1974 Fellow, American Statistical Association
1975 Fellow, Royal Statistical Society; Fellow, Institute of Mathematical Statistics
1978 Retired; Honorary Life Member, Statistical Society of Australia
1980 E.J.G. Pitman Medal, Statistical Society of Australia
1981 Honorary Life Member, Australian Mathematical Society
1987 Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
1990 Annual lecture of NSW Branch of the Australian Statistical Society named the H.O. Lancaster Lecture
1992 Officer of the Order of Australia

Publications:
Founding editor, Australian Journal of Statistics, 1959 1971
Bibliography of Vital Statistics in Australia and New Zealand, Australian Medical Publishing Company, 1964
Bibliography of Statistical Bibliographies, Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh, 1968
The Chi Squared Distribution, John Wiley, New York, 1969
An Introduction to Medical Statistics, John Wiley, New York, 1974
Expectations of Life, Springer Verlag, New York, 1990
Quantitative Methods in Biological and Medical Sciences, Springer Verlag, New York, 1994
Numerous papers on mortality, mathematics and statistics in learned journals

See also:
Australian Journal of Statistics, November 1979, In Honour of H.O. Lancaster, Founding Editor
Gani, J, editor, The Making of Statisticians, Springer, Verlag, 1982, Autobiographical Notes pp. 235 252

See University of Sydney Archives Biographical File No. 826 for full bibliography