Major Greenwood (1880–1949): a biographical and bibliographical study

Abstract

Major Greenwood was the foremost medical statistician of the first half of the 20th century in the UK. Trained in both medicine and statistics, his career extended over 45years during which he published eight books, 23 extensive reports and over 200 papers. His classical education extended to Latin and Greek, and he was fluent in German and French. We provide an overview of his life including family background, training and his career subdivided according to the places where he worked. We describe in particular the key role he played with others in the development of medical statistics within the Medical Research Council, the General Register Office, the Department of Health and the Universities. © 2015 The Authors. Statistics in Medicine Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Medical statistics, Austin Bradford Hill, and a celebration of 40 years of Statistics in Medicine

“…7 This move must have been enabled by Major Greenwood (1880-1949) who at the time was Chair of the MRC Statistical Committee. 8 The Greenwood and Hill families lived close by one another in Essex, and in 1906 Leonard Hill had rescued Greenwood from an unwanted career in medicine, by giving him a post in his laboratory at the London Hospital. 9 In a sense then, Greenwood was repaying a family debt, but being a very good judge of character and ability, the appointment would not have been made on the basis of nepotism.…”

Major Greenwood (1880–1949): the biography

“…To obtain a second opinion of the biography, we provided a confidential copy to Professor Peter Armitage who was acquainted with Major Greenwood at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and who had provided his personal reflections on Greenwood that formed a part of our second paper . His view was that it was ‘a remarkable find’, and he commented ‘how beautifully it is written’ and that it ‘covers the family background more fully’ than we had been able to do previously and ‘provides perhaps unique insight into Greenwood's relations with so many of the key players such as his father, Bacot, Karl Pearson and Yule’.…”

“…Nevertheless, in 2015, we did proceed to write a longer paper, which covered Greenwood's entire career from 1880 to his death in 1949, and this was also published in Statistics in Medicine . For both of our biographical papers , we benefitted from comments from Dr Roger Major Greenwood who, like his grandfather, was qualified in medicine and trained as a statistician, and who also provided us with photographs from the family collection.…”

Major Greenwood and clinical trials

“…Major Greenwood (1880–1949) was the foremost medical statistician in the UK during the first half of the 20th century (Farewell and Johnson 2016). The son of a general medical practitioner, he obtained a medical degree from the London Hospital in 1904 and then studied statistics under Karl Pearson at University College London.…”

“…Major Greenwood authored more than 200 scientific papers, 24 major reports, and nine books (including one that was never published); and his associates included many distinguished scientists, politicians, and members of the medical profession. Further details can be found in Greenwood GB 1984; Wenzel 1986; and Farewell and Johnson 2014 and 2016.…”