John Ashworth Nelder. 8 October 1924—7 August 2010

Abstract

John Nelder was a statistician who made important contributions to applied statistical theory, of which three are notable: his work on general balance; his influential collaboration with Robert Wedderburn and later Peter McCullagh on the development of generalized linear models (GLMs); and his post-retirement collaboration with Youngjo Lee on hierarchical generalized linear models (HGLMs). John started his career at the National Vegetable Research Station in Wellesbourne in 1950, and was subsequently head of statistics at Rothamsted Experimental Station, Harpenden, from 1968 to his retirement in 1984, during which time he regularly gave a course of lectures on statistical computing at Imperial College London. He wrote several highly influential books and received many honours, including the Guy Medals in Silver and in Gold of the Royal Statistical Society (in 1977 and 2005) and an honorary doctorate from the Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, in 1981. His work on GLMs completely changed the world of statistical modelling, his theory of general balance was years ahead of its time and it is perhaps too early to judge his work on HGLMs. The simplex algorithm for function optimization developed with Roger Mead has proved extremely popular. John was an excellent pianist with a wide range of musical interests.