SKETCH OF DR. WILLIAM FARR. 405 



plicability and permanent value of which became every year more 

 evident. Of these reports, as a whole, the registrar-general says in 

 his report for 1879 : " To his scientific researches and reports I at- 

 tribute any reputation that may have accrued to the General Register 

 Office of England and Wales from the time he accepted office in this 

 department." Besides these letters, many special and supplementary 

 reports were contributed by Dr. Farr to the publications issued by 

 the registrar-general. Among them were the " English Life Tables," 

 the first, for 1841, based upon the deaths in all of England and Wales 

 for that year; and the second, for 1844, on the mortality of the seven 

 preceding years ; while the third, for 1854, on the seventeen preceding 

 years, was published as a distinct work, prepared by direction of the 

 Government for use as the basis of the post-office insurance system. 

 In 1852 he published a report on the cholera epidemic of 1848-'49 ; 

 and, in connection with the twenty-ninth annual report of his chief, a 

 report on the cholera epidemic of 18G6. Of special value also were 

 his decennial reports on the English mortality statistics of the three 

 decades, 1841-'50, 1851-'60, and 18Gl-'70, the last of which, says the 

 " Lancet," " especially is a mine of statistical wealth, not only as a 

 treasury of well-arranged and analyzed facts, but as suggestive of 

 fruitful fields for future investigation." 



Dr. Farr was appointed an assistant commissioner under the direc- 

 tion of the registrar-general for taking the censuses of 1851, 1861, and 

 1871 ; did valuable service in statistically organizing and superintend- 

 ing each of the enumerations, and wrote the greater part of each of 

 the three reports. He was one of the earliest members of the Statis- 

 tical Society, and was for forty-two years a member of its council, its 

 treasurer for twelve years, and its president in 1871 and 1872. His 

 papers to this society have been pronounced by Mr. Leoni Levi, also 

 an eminent statistician, "replete with facts, rich with mathematical 

 lore, and remarkable for close reasoning," but never dry ; and his 

 work was invariably marked by a distinct and due regard to prac- 

 tical results. He was an early and valued supporter of the British 

 Association, the British Medical Association, and the Social Science 

 Association, in the proceedings of all of which bodies papers by him 

 may be found, and was largely instrumental in the formation of the 

 Section of Statistics and Economical Science in the British Asso- 

 ciation. 



Dr. Farr served the state on a large number of royal commissions 

 and parliamentary committees on sanitary and other subjects, in the 

 work of which his special attainments, his familiarity with statistics 

 relating to them, and his mathematical skill, made his assistance de- 

 sirable, and sometimes indispensable. Among the special subjects 

 with which he was thus at one time or another engaged, were army 

 medical statistics, the health of the army in India, the condition of 

 mines in Great Britain, water-supply, public health, and police super- 



