| Description | Letters were found divided between six folders, and arranged chronologically. The letters have been described below in these groups.
Letters covering the period 1903-1907, about exams at Lady Barn House School, on Sigrid's acting and singing, about a "breaking-in party", playing games and sport, on building a model railway, on lessons and test results, bird-spotting, about the school "Open Afternoon" and his role in "The Flight from Troy", on keeping pets, and stamp collecting.
Letters covering the period 1913-1918, on his scholarship and exam results, on getting rooms at Trinity College, Cambridge, on beginning the Mathematical Tripos, on Union fees, referring to his war work and wish to continue with Applied Mathematics at Cambridge after the war, on life at his house in St. Margaret's-on-the-Cliffs (where Egon worked for the Ministry of Shipping), on his and Karl's war work and thoughts on the disadvantages of an "inconclusive peace", on reading a biography of Michelangelo and a book by Young on Astronomy, commiserating on the death of Robert J Parker, on the subject of making friends, on work at the Ministry of Shipping following the armistice and prospects at Cambridge, on keeping his options open through study and keenness to join Karl at the Galton Laboratory after leaving Cambridge, and on the 1918 General Election results.
Letters covering the period 1919-1920, recollecting the co-operative spirit at the Ministry of Shipping during the First World War and difficulty of requisitioning vessels to maintain a standing fleet, on accommodation at Cambridge and finishing a picture of Robert J Parker, on his chosen lectures for Part 2 of the Mathematical Tripos, on the death of Dr Goring, on studying astronomy, on College fees and Dr Bromwich's assistance in finding him a mathematics coach (encloses letter from Bromwich), on astonomy lectures he is taking in the 1919-1920 session and some work on stereoscopic plates of the spectrum of Nova Aquilae, exams to be taken for the Sheepshanks Exhibition and enclosing bill for fees, on proceedings at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in March 1920, on his chronograph experiments, and work on the correlation of differences.
Letters covering the period 1921-1929, and comprises letters on correlation of ranks, looking forward to assisting with eugenics work, on health of puppies, on visit to London to see Mrs Thicknesse, on a holiday in Dorset with his cousin George Sharpe, on hypotheses for chance of occurance in sample populations, describing the scene at Bisley, Berkshire, about possibility of teaching in Chicago during a Summer Term, on travel in Poland with Neyman for the Poznan congress including description of the village Kroscienko nad Dunajcem, and on company in Poland and first impression of Corrado Gini, and reporting on the material and environmental conditions at the temporary animal house [at UCL?].
Letters covering the period 1930-1931, and comprises letters on corrections to Mahalanobis' proof, about working on Dinsmore Alter's paper on a periodogram test, on correcting and returning proofs of other statistical papers, on possibility of his aunts Mary and Julia living together, on the child adopted by his sister Sigrid, giving a diarised account of his trip to America, including lecturing at Teachers College and American Statistical Association (encloses programmes), on being shown experimental items such as "television" and "talking pictures", on helping staff at Teachers College acquire copies of "Biometrika", about meeting Pretorius at Knox College, Illinois, American keenness for statistics, on Carver's establishment of the "Annals of Mathematical Statistics", on teaching statistics at the University of Iowa in 1931, on being labelled a "Fisherite" by Karl, about travelling to the West Coast and then Toronto, indifference to statistics at Stanford University, and about travels in Canada in August 1931.
Letters covering the period 1932-1936, on tests for linearity of regression, on disagreement with Karl in statistical analysis, on Karl's criticism of younger men's work and Egon's work on Hojo's paper for "Biometrika", about doing sampling work for an investigation by R C Geary (enclosing Geary's letter to Karl), enclosing table and diagram on the beta distribution, enclosing a typescript of "Statistical Tests" by Egon and a letter from G U Yule about his "heart-block", about the British Association for the Advancement of Science Presidential Addresses during the 1935 annual meeting, on business at the Department of Statistics at UCL, and on visits to the Shirley Institute and Woollen Research Institute. |