George Rae, D.Sc. 1884-1946Author(s): A. B. H.Source: Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Vol. 109, No. 3 (1946), p. 313Published by: Wiley for the Royal Statistical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2981383 .

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1946] Obituary 313

GEORGE RAE, D.Sc. 1884-1946

To a majority of the many new Fellows, who have joined the Society during the war and the subsequent yeats, the name of George Rae may be only a name, one that appeared periodically on the list of the Council. For, modest and unassuming, he invariably kept himself in the back- ground. Older Fellows and, in particular, members of the Council, will recall a colleague of considerable personal charm, one whose quiet and rather diffident contributions to a discussion were always precisely to the point and of value, and one who had worked long and successfully to advance the development and the right use of statistics in his own field of work-the tea and rubber industries.

Born in 1884, the son of a master-joiner of Aberdeen, Rae was educated at Robert Gordons College and at Aberdeen University at which he maintained himself by coaching and other work. He graduated B.Sc. in 1906 and many years later (in 1929) took his D.Sc. For a few years, 1911-15, he was an assistant lecturer in mathematics in the department of Professor McDonald. In 1915 he enlisted as a gunner in the Royal Garrison Artillery. Later in life he would often say that his experience in the ranks had been a time of peculiar happiness to him, and it was with some. reluctance that he was persuaded to take a commission late in 1916. He was wounded at Nieu- port and lost the sight of an eye, a disability of which few of his colleagues were aware. Invalided from the Army he joined, in 1918, the staff of the Board of Trade, where for a short time he was an assistant to a former President of the Society, Mr. H. W. Macrosty. In the following year he took up the work which occupied the rest of his life, as statistician to Messrs. Harrisons and Crosfield. At the time of his appointment the raw statistical materials for the tea and rubber industries were few and far between, and it was entirely through his orderly and enquiring mind that a sound system was set up to produce the relevant figures in a digestible form. His abilities were, however, frequently applied to a considerably wider field than that. The trading interests of his firm are world-wide and impinge on many and diverse industries. Rae was soon involved in problems of a general economic character and in economic research.

His talents, too, were well utilized by the various' associations with which Messrs. Harrison and Crosfield were connected. In particular, he did much pioneer work for the Rubber Growers Association, and the exhaustive statistical tables published in its Bulletin from 1922 to 1934 were largely the product of his industry.

It was on this subject-The Statistics of the Rubber Industry-that he read, in 1938, his one paper before the Society. He had become a Fellow in 1920, served on the Council from 1936 to 1941 and again, for a second term, from 1942 until the time of his death. In 1946, shortly before his death, he became a Vice-President, an appointment which in view of his illness he was doubtful of accepting but which, it is known, gave him much pleasure.

One who worked in close association with him writes: " What struck me most about George Rae was his extraordinary generosity. He was always anxious to encourage young statisticians and to share with them his wide knowledge, not only of the rubber industry but also of the play of economic forces in. a wider sphere." This generosity, bestowed with his customary modesty, will not be lightly forgot,ten by those he benefited. Those of us who met him only outside his work knew that upon his death in November 1946 the Society had lost a shy but warm-hearted friend and counsellor.

A. B. H.

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