Claus Moser, Baron Moser - Biography

Claus Adolf Moser, Baron Moser, KCB, CBE (born 24 November 1922 in Berlin, Germany) is a British statistician who has made major contributions in both academia and the Civil Service. He prides himself rather on being a non-mathematical statistician, and says that the thing that frightened him most in his life was when Maurice Kendall asked him to teach a course on analysis of variance at the LSE.

Life

Claus Moser moved to England with his parents in 1936. He went to Frensham Heights School and the London School of Economics (LSE). Despite being Jewish, in 1940 he was interned as an enemy alien in Huyton camp. After four months he was released and served in the Royal Air Force, 1943–1946. He then returned to LSE as Assistant Lecturer, then Lecturer, in Statistics, 1946–1955; Reader in Social Statistics, 1955–1961; Professor of Social Statistics, 1961–1970; Visiting Professor of Social Statistics, 1970–1975.

In 1965, he applied for a job at the Central Statistical Office but was rejected, as a former enemy alien. However, this did not seem to be a problem when in 1967 Harold Wilson appointed him Director of the Central Statistical Office. He was made a Knight Commander of the Bath in 1973. He resigned as Director in 1978.

He has held a very wide variety of other posts. These include:

• Member, Governing Body, Royal Academy of Music, 1967–1979
• BBC Music Advisory Committee, 1971–1983
• Visiting Fellow, Nuffield College, Oxford, 1972–1980
• Chairman, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1974–1987
• Director, N. M. Rothschild & Sons, 1978–1990 (Vice-Chairman, 1978–1984)
• President, Royal Statistical Society, 1978–1980
• Chairman, Economist Intelligence Unit, 1979–1983
• Warden, Wadham College, Oxford, 1984–1993
• Chancellor, Keele University, 1986–2002
• Trustee, London Philharmonic Orchestra, 1988–2000
• President, British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1989–1990
• Pro-Vice-Chancellor, University of Oxford, 1991–1993
• Chairman, British Museum Development Trust, 1993–2003, now Chairman Emeritus
• Chancellor, Open University of Israel, 1994–2004

He was made a Life peer with the title Baron Moser, of Regents Park in the London Borough of Camden in 2001. Other honours include the Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts, 1996, Commandeur de l'Ordre National du Mérite (France), 1976; Commander's Cross, Order of Merit (Germany), 1985.

The Claus Moser Research Centre

In 1997 Claus Moser participated in a ceremony at Keele University to mark the start of construction of the Claus Moser Research Centre, a dedicated research facility for the Humanities and Social Sciences. He returned to the university in June 2008 to participate in the official opening of the £3.5m building.

See also

• List of British Jewish scientists

External links

• LSE: Sir Claus Moser
• Portraits of Statisticians