Tim Holt (statistician)
British statistician (1943–2022)
David Holt CB (29 October 1943 – 15 November 2022), better known as Tim Holt, was a British statistician who was Professor Emeritus of Social Statistics at the University of Southampton. He had been the president of the Royal Statistical Society (2005–2007), the last director of the Central Statistical Office of the United Kingdom, and the first director of the Office for National Statistics (and ex-officio Registrar General).
Background
Holt was born in Lewes, Sussex on 29 October 1943 as David Holt, but acquired the nickname Tim after the actor. He was educated at Coopers' Company School and then took a maths degree and a PhD in statistics at Exeter with thesis titled Some contributions to the statistical analysis of single and mixed exponential distributions in 1970. Throughout his career, his main interests have been survey methods, sampling theory and official statistics. He took a particular interest, through his membership of the Royal Statistical Society, in the independence of national statistics from government.
Career
Holt's first job was with Statistics Canada, the national statistics office of Canada, where he spent four years before joining the Department of Social Statistics at the University of Southampton in 1980. He was Leverhulme Professor of Social Statistics from 1980 to 1995 and Deputy Vice-Chancellor from 1990 to 1995. From 1989 to 1991, he was also vice-president of the International Association of Survey Statisticians (IASS).
Holt became the director of the Central Statistical Office and Head of the Government Statistical Service in 1995 and, subsequently, the first director of the Office for National Statistics when it was formed on 1 April 1996 from the merger of the Central Statistical Office (CSO) and the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS).
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