KNIBBS AND WICKENS

KNIBBS AND WICKENSAuthor(s): Alan GraySource: Journal of the Australian Population Association, Vol. 5, No. 1 (May 1988), pp. 1-14Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41110542 .

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Vol. 5, No.1, 1988 Journal of the Australian Population Association

KNIBBS AND WICKEN S

Alan Gray Department of Demography RSSS, The Australian National University,

GPO Box 4, Canberra, ACT 2601

SUMMARY

A recent claim that the first Commonwealth Statistician, Sir George Knibbs, was not the real author of the work The Mathematical Theory of Population is shown to conflict tadth overwhelming evidence that Knibbs was the author in fact, as well as in name. Resolution of this question gives a keen appreciation of the work of Knibbs and his successor, fir Charles Wickens.

In an address to mark the fiftieth anniversary of his appointment as Commonwealth Statistician, Sir Roland Wilson referred to the first two Commonwealth Statisticians Sir George Handley Knibbs and Mr Charles Henry Wickens (Wilson 1986: 1-2):

Charles Wickens was a very able mathematician and he is reputed to have been the real author of that great work The Mathematical Theory of Population (published under Sir George Knibbs1 name) which was so very many years ahead of its time. I think it ought to be recorded that he was in fact the man who wrote that book.

Knibbs f s Mathematical Theory (Knibbs, 1917) is sometimes cited among the pioneering works of demography (see for example Caldwell, 1985: 23) and in the recent past was included in a series of reprints of such works, along with one of Knibbs' s later books (Knibbs, 1928), published by Arno Press, New York. It authorship is therefore a matter of some importance.

To understand how a claim such as Wilson's could be made, it is necessary to be familiar with the long-standing tradition, in the Australian Public Service, of suppressing the true authorship of pieces of official writing of any size, and attributing them to the heads of the offices in which they were written. This tradition was the product of a strict interpretation of notions of public responsibility and accountability. This tradition lends immediate plausibility to any claim that a document published as an official document in the past was in fact written by someone other than the person whose name appeared on the title page. This is especially the case when the originator of the claim was in close proximity to the publication of the document concerned. (The Mathematical Theory of Population was first published as an appendix to the Statistician's Report of the 1911 Census.)



Wilson did not in fact join the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics until 1932, fifteen years after the publication of The Mathematical Theory and three years after the death of Knibbs, but he had at least met Wickens and first worked (as an assistant to the Acting Commonwealth Statistician L.F. Giblin) in the very office which had been occupied by Knibbs only eleven years before. Wilson's claim must therefore be regarded as having the merit of a prima facie case.

Knibbs was born in Sydney in 1858, became a public servant on the staff of the New South Wales Government's Trigonometrical and General Survey between 1877 and 1889, then a lecturer in surveying at Sydney University from 1889 to 1906, and acting Professor of Physics in 1905-6, before joining the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics as the first Commonwealth Statistician at the inception of the Bureau in 1906. He had been President of the Royal Society of New South Wales, the New South Wales Section of the British Astronomical Association, Sydney University Engineering Society, the New South Wales Institution of Surveyors and the Society for Child Study at various times before the 1906 appointment. Before and after his appointment he served on a number of commissions and Royal Commissions: Primary, Secondary, Technical and Other Branches of Education for New South Wales in 1902-06; Insurance for Federated Australia in 1909-10; Trade and Industry during the War in 1914-15; and as chairman, Taxation of Crown Leaseholds in 1918-19. In 1921, he left the position of Commonwealth Statistician to become the first Director of the new Commonwealth Institute of Science and Industry, later to become the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, and was President of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science in 1923-24. He retired because of ill- health in 1926 and died in 1929 (Bambrick, 1969; Nairn and Serle, 1983; Who's Who, 1941).

Wickens was born in 1872 at Lockwood near Bendigo, Victoria, and worked on the family orchard after leaving the local one-teacher school with no more than an elementary education. After private study, he passed Part I of the examinations of the Institute of Actuaries in 1895 and Part II in 1896. He then joined the service of the Western Australian Government in 1897, initially as an assistant clerk, then as an assistant statistical clerk, and from 1901 to 1906 as compiler and departmental actuary; he also served as Chief Clerk on the Western Australian Census in 1901. Like Knibbs, he joined the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics at its inception in 1906, and became the Supervisor responsible for the Censuses of 1911 and 1921, and the War Census of 1915. After becoming the second Commonwealth Statistician in 1922, Wickens also became Commonwealth Actuary in 1924, creating a link between these two offices which persisted until within the last twenty years. He was instrumental in establishing the Economic Society of Australia and New Zealand and served as Chairman, and was also President of the Actuarial Society of Australasia. A stroke left him an invalid in 1931; he retired in 1932 and died in 1939 (Lancaster, n.d.; Who's Who, 1941).

Both Knibbs and Wickens actually published articles which fore- shadowed The Mathematical Theory in some ways. Resolution of the question of authorship of that work revolves around two main questions: first, the strength of the tradition of ascribing author-



ship to heads of offices at the time of the publication of The Mathematical Theory; and second, the content and style of the previous and later work of the two people.

On the first question, a bibliographical examination shows that Wickens was certainly not constrained from publishing under his own name. There are at least five articles (Wickens, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1917) in his own name while he was an officer of the Bureau under Knibbs, and smother paper co-authored with Knibbs (Knibbs and Wickens, 1913). Three of the sole-authored articles appeared as "professional papers" in a series published by the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, along with authored articles by a number of other officers of the Bureau, including Knibbs himself. It seems that at the time the Bureau was quite keen to promote the individual reputations of its officers.

Wickens1 s paper of 1913 was quite definitely in the spirit of the mathematical modelling which was to inform The Mathematical Theory. It was an application of curve-fitting of the Makeham-Gompertz type to Australian data on infant and early childhood death. The same subject is treated in The Mathematical Theory (pp. 406-10), but the mathematical presentation, though parallel to that of Wickens 's paper, differs considerably in presentation, detail and notation. Moreover, Wickens1 s paper is cited but not entirely endorsed:

Although Mr Wickens has shewn that, in a general way, a curve of the Gompertz-Makeham type represents the facts for the first few years of life, the formulae given do not conform to the details of the first twelve months of life.

Unless Wickens had changed his mind about something with which he had been quite pleased in 1913, and which he thought had very general application, this citation does not read like a reference to the author's own work. The Mathematical Theory contains a number of other references to Wickens, which are mostly acknowledgements of Wickens' s assistance in preparing tables (see for examples pp. 76-7 and pp. 122-3). This would seem to be an unusual approach for a ghost- writer to take.

At first sight the most telling evidence that Wickens could not have been the author for Appendix A (Mathematical Theory) of the Statistician's Report on the 1911 Census is that he was the author of Appendix B (Wickens, 1917) and acknowledged to be the author. Yet first appearances are not conclusive: Appendix B could hardly have been ascribed to anyone else, such as Knibbs, because it was a paper that had already been read in Wickens' s name.

The fact is that while Wickens had clearly been able to publish in his own name, there were no official publications in names other than that of Knibbs, the Commonwealth Statistician, except Appendix B to the 1911 Census Statistician's Report, and in that case the attribution to Wickens had good cause. On the other hand, some of Wickens' s publications are actually very close to being official publications (for example, Wickens, 1910). On the face of things, it would still appear possible that Wickens was the principal author of The Mathematical Theory except, as already mentioned, that the nature of its citations works against accepting that view.

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There is certainly evidence that some pieces of work done by Wickens were published by the Commonwealth Bureau of Statistics with the sole attribution to the Commonwealth Statistician, or to no-one at all. For instance, Wickens claimed credit for Australian life tables of 1881-1890, 1891-1900, 1901-10 and 1920-22 (Whofs Who, 1941), but the 1901-10 life tables in particular were issued as official documents in Knibbs's name, and were mistakenly attributed to Knibbs by Bambrick (1969: 135). In a bibliography (Lancaster, n.d.), which was apparently compiled from Wickens family papers, there are several other references to pieces of Wickens' s work which were not attributed to him, including life tables for Western Australia issued in 1905. Anonymous and official publications have not been included in the references to this paper, with the sole exceptions of Appendices A and B to the 1911 Census Statistician's Report (Knibbs, 1917; Wickens, 1917). Among the interesting entries of this type in Lancaster's bibliography for Wickens are references to the Official Year Book special articles on the Aboriginal population in the 1924 issue, and the Chinese population in the 1925 issue, the 1920-22 life tables, and some other Yearbook articles.

There is enough in the above discussion to conclude that Wickens may have felt aggrieved that certain pieces of work which were very clearly his own did not appear in his name. It seems virtually certain, for example, that all life tables issued by the Commonwealth Bureau of Statistics until his retirement were entirely his work. This was in a period when the techniques of life table construction were still being developed and refined, and Wickens himself appears to have contributed to that process of development and refinement. Nevertheless, if Wickens did feel aggrieved, there is no suggestion at all that it was over The Mathematical Theory of Population.

When Knibbs's previous publications are examined it becomes possible to form a clearer idea of authorship of The Mathematical Theory.

The Mathematical Theory frequently cites previous articles by Knibbs, sometimes referring to articles "by the author". Many of these articles were published in the Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, and inspection of them reveals three things: first, an identical style of mathematical presentation where the same topics are covered; secondly, and strikingly, exactly the same penchant for complicated graphical presentation, and the same style of graphs, as is found throughout The Mathematical Theory even in the case of articles written before Knibbs had apparently developed any interest in population matters (see for example Knibbs, 1900a, 1901b, c); thirdly, and conclusively, papers in a series on "statistical representation" (Knibbs, 1910b, 1911c; Knibbs and Barford, 1914), a term which is highlighted in the sub-title of The Mathematical Theory. A representative list of Knibbs's and Wickens' s articles and other publications is included in the references at the end of this paper.

If Wickens were the principal author of The Mathematical Theory we would have to conclude that he relied so heavily on Knibbs's previous work for much of the book that Knibbs might as well have been the author. It seems safe to conclude that the virtual author, the acknowledged author, and the principal author were the same person,

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Knibbs. This does not rule out the possibility that Wickens contributed very substantially to the development of the book, and may have been the author of parts of it. It would be strange indeed if Wickens had not contributed very substantially, given his proximity to its production, and acknowledgements in the text make it clear that he did in fact contribute, at the very least, through substantial research assistance.

Among other reasons for accepting that Knibbs was the author is that a prolific record of publications was substantially curtailed in the few years before 1917, the date of publication of The Mathematical Theory. Even the few "professional papers" of 1913 were in fact from a conference in 1911.

Once it is accepted that Knibbs was the author, the role of Wickens can actually be appreciated more keenly. Knibbs and Wickens must have learnt much from working with each other. Knibbs had come from an essentially applied mathematics background, and his work shows a progression from interest in the physical sciences to interest in the social sciences. Wickens, for his part, had always had an applied social science leaning, especially in areas related to his training in actuarial studies.

Knibbs 's progression can best be appreciated from part of an address he gave as President of the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1899 (Knibbs, 1899a: 5), where he refers to the use of mathematics in the social sciences:

The reactions and interactions of all are so complex as to transcend any possibility of exact delineation; and attempts at outlining their operation quantitatively, are as fanciful as they are futile. In human affairs it must therefore often suffice to watch, as well as one may, the part played by each factor, without necessarily essaying that precision of measurement which so delights the mathematical mind, and which the genius of the physicist demands as the consummation of knowledge.

And this person was to become the author of a Mathematical Theory of Population which sought to reduce a very large part of human behaviour to mathematical models and laws! Only in the decade before 1917 did Knibbs1 s writing start to show any interest in mathematical applications in social sciences. (The first apparent example is Knibbs, 1907). It would be difficult to believe that Knibbs1 s responsibilities as Commonwealth Statistician and the influence of working with a census and mortality specialist like Wickens did not play a major role in Knibbs1 s intellectual development and so to The Mathematical Theory. Both Knibbs and Wickens were also in debt "to* other Australian statisticians of the era, particularly Coghlan who is cited extensively in The Mathematical Theory.

The Mathematical Theory was a highly unusual document. It was certainly ahead of its time, as Wilson contends, but this was in part because it was hardly possible to attempt an undertaking of its type in the second decade of the twentieth century, before the development of stable population theory. The theoretical emphasis of the work is

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the search for immutable mathematical laws which describe the components of population structure and growth, laws which ultimately could not be justified. On the other hand, the book contains a large number of ideas for statistical methods and measures, especially in fertility and mortality. Some of these ideas have become standard methods of demographic analysis in the second half of the twentieth century, one suspects in most cases after rediscovery. Other ideas remain to be recycled into use.

Reduction of demography into mathematical laws characterized earlier writings of both Knibbs and Wickens, despite the attitude cited above in Knibbs1 s 1899 address to the Royal Society of New South Wales. Wickens 's work on Makeham-Gompertz laws of mortality has already been mentioned. Knibbs, for his part, had a curious little mathematical law about fertility (essentially the general fertility rate) and infant mortality (Knibbs, 1908a, 1910a). Like much of The Mathematical Theory, it is an observation-based rather than theory- based "law".

It is almost as if, a fresh convert to the field of social statistics, Knibbs leapt too readily into devising a grand scheme of demographic representation which his talents could have developed more fully at a more leisurely pace. Perhaps this impression is best summed up by Wickens himself in his obituary for Knibbs (Wickens, 1929c: 335):

He was rather a mathematician and statistician than an economist, but the work which he did on the population question is worthy of consideration by all economists. His most ambitious effort was his Mathematical Theory of Population, [publication details, wildly inaccurate].

The Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics was extremely fortunate to have had Knibbs and Wickens as its first two heads. Both clearly devoted a great deal of their effort to the establishment of a high reputation for the Bureau in its work on population. There is some suggestion that Knibbs1 s manner, described by Bambrick (1969: 132) as "self-assurance and didacticism bordering on pomposity [which] may have rendered him unpopular with both his colleagues and political masters" could have led to his "demotion" to the post of Director of the Commonwealth Institute of Science and Industry. Lancaster (n.d.: 5) adds plausibility to this theory, noting that

it had long been evident that there would be advantages in having centralized control of the official statistics in Australia, but the relations between his [Wickens !s] predecessor, G.H. Knibbs, and the State Statisticians were such that no progress could be made.

Knibbs himself had been involved with efforts at statistical coordination with the States right from the start (Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, 1906), but no apparent progress was made until Wickens1 s succession. There was also apparently some feeling, mentioned again by Wickens in his obituary quoted above, that Knibbs was no economist. Wickens, however, sought to expand the Bureau's stature in the field of economic statistics and did so by his

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involvement in the foundation of the Economic Society of Australia and extensive contribution to the Economic Record,

Wickens was enough of a "States" man to have represented Western Australia at the 1906 conference of Statisticians (Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, 1906) although he had already joined the Commonwealth Bureau by that time. Moreover, Wickens1 s contribution in conducting the first centrally-run population census must have been very considerable, bearing in mind that the previous census had been conducted as a coordinated effort by the different States and had itself been very successful.

To conclude this paper, it is interesting to record that both Knibbs and Wickens were connected with the establishment of the International Union for the Scientific Investigation of Population Problems, later to become the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population. Both were connected with Margaret Sanger' s World Population Conference in Geneva in 1927 (Sänger, 1927), Knibbs as a participant and Wickens as the author of a contributed paper (Wickens, 1927). Wickens was not recorded as a participant in the conference, although he was in fact in Geneva in 1927 for a conference of the International Labour Organization. The World Population Conference resulted in the formation of the IUSIPP. In the following year, 1928, Paris was the site for the Constituent Assembly of the IUSIPP. While neither Knibbs nor Wickens was present, Wickens was co-opted onto the Provisional Committee. It was probably no more than distance that prevented him from participating in later work of the Union.

It should also be mentioned that the appearance of the anthropol- ogist Radcliffe-Brown1 s 1930 article on "Former numbers and distribution of the Aboriginal population of Australia" in the 1930 Yearbook of Australia (Radcliffe-Brown, 1930) was possibly connected with this international activity of Knibbs and Wickens. The 1928 assembly appointed three Commissions, one on Population and Food Supply, one on Differential Fertility, Fecundity and Sterility, and one on the Vital Statistics of Primitive Races. The last of these was under the chairmanship of Gini from Italy and included the anthropol- ogist Malinowski, who had published on Australian Aborigines, as its vice-chairman. Given Wickens' s position on the Executive Committee of the Union, that Wickens himself claimed authorship of the 1924 Year Book article on the Aboriginal population, and probable close professional contact between Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown, it seems very likely that Radcliffe-Brown' s article was a component of an international programme of work by this commission.



REFERENCES (including bibliographies for G.H. Knibbs and C.H. Wickens.)

AUSTRALIA, COMMONWEALTH BUREAU OF CENSUS AND STATISTICS (1906), Unification of Australasian Statistical Methods and Co-ordination of the Work of the Commonwealth and State Bureaux: Conference of Statisticians of the Commonwealth and States of Australia and the Colony of New Zealand, Melbourne, November and December, 1906, Government Printer, Melbourne.

BAMBRICK, S. (1969), "The first Commonwealth Statistician: Sir George Knibbs11, Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 102: 127-35.

BRIGDEN, J.B., COPLAND, D.B., DYASON, E.C., GIBLIN, L.F. and WICKENS, C.H. (1929), The Australian Tariff: an Economic Enquiry, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.

CALDWELL, J.C. (1985), "Man and his futures", Search, 16, 1-2: 22-8.

INTERNATIONAL UNION FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF POPULATION (1985), The IUSSP in History, Exhibit on the foundation and early developments of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, 20th IUSSP General Conference, Florence.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1885), "A system of accurate measurement by means of long steel ribands", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 19.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1890), "The theory of repetition of angular measures with theodolites", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 24.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1891), "The nature and public utility of trigonometrical, general and cadastral survey" [essay], New South Wales Institution of Surveyors, Sydney.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1895), "The history, theory and determination of the viscosity of water by the efflux method", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 29.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1896a), "Note on recent determinations of the viscosity of water by the efflux method", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales. 30.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1896b), "The rigorous theory of the determination of the meridian line by the altaximuth solar observations", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 30.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1897a), "The theory of the reflecting extensometer of Professor Martens", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 31.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1897b), "On the steady flow of water in uniform pipes and channels", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 31.

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KNIBBS, G. H. (1898), "The place of astronomy in a liberal education11, Presidential address to the New South Wales Branch of the British Astronomical Association, S.E. Lees, Sydney.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1899a), "Anniversary address" (President's address to the Society), Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 33: 1-44.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1899b), "Observations on the determination of drought- intensity", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 33: 69-85.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1899c), "Some applications of and development of the prismoidal formula", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 33.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1900a), "On the relation, in determining the volumes of solids, whose parallel transverse sections are n c functions of their position on the axis, between the number, position, and coefficients of the sections, and the (positive) indices of the functions", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 34: 36-71.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1900b), "The sun's motion in space: Part I, history and bibliography", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 34.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1901a), "The theory of city design", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 35.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1901b), "On the principle of continuity in the generation of geometrical figures in pure and pseudo-homaloidal space of n-dimensions", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 35: 243-319.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1901c), "Some theorems concerning geometrical figures in space of n-dimensions, whose (n-1) dimensional generatrices are n functions of their position on an axis, straight, curved or tortuous", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 35: 319-32.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1903), "The hydraulic aspect of the artesian problem", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 36.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1907), "The classification of disease and causes of death, from the standpoint of the statistician", Intercolonial Medical Journal of Australasia. [Address given to the Victorian Branch of the British Medical Association, 12 June 1907], 20 June 1907.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1908a), "Influence of infantile mortality on birthrate", in Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Professional Papers [Reprinted from Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 42: 238-50], Government Printer, Melbourne.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1908b), "On the statistical opportunities of the medical profession", in Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Professional Papers (2) [Reprinted from Transactions of the 8th Session, Australasian Medical Congress, Medical Congress, Melbourne, 1908, Volume II], Government Printer, Melbourne.

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KNIBBS, G. H. (1908c), "Tuberculosis duration frequency curves, and the number of existing cases ultimately fatal", in Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Professional Papers (2) [Reprinted from Transactions of the 8th Session, Australasian Medical Congress, Melbourne, 1908, Volume II], Government Printer, Melbourne.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1909), "The problems of statistics", Report of the 12th Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science: 509.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1910a), "Note on the influence of infantile mortality on birthrate", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Vales, 44: 22-4.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1910b), "Studies in statistical representation, on the p

nature and computation of the curve y = Axmen ", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Vales, 44: 341-67.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1910c), "Social insurance", Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Professional Paper , Government Printer, Melbourne.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1911a), The First Commonwealth Census, 3rd April, 1911, Government Printer, Melbourne.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1911b), "The improvement in infantile mortality: its annual fluctuations and frequency according to age, in Australia", Journal of the Australasian Medical Congress, September 1911: 670-9.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1911c), "Studies in statistical representation: statistical applications of Fourier series. Illustrated by the analysis of the rates of marriage, temperature, suicide, etc.", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Vales, 45: 76-110.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1911d), "Suicide in Australia: a statistical analysis of the facts", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Vales, 45: 225-46.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1913a), Voices of the North, and Echoes of Hellas, Atston Rivers, London.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1913b), "The international nosological classification and accurate certification of causes of death", Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Professional Paper , Government Printer, Sydney.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1913c), "The secular progress of pulmonary tuberculosis and cancer in Australia for the past thirty years, their annual fluctuation, and their frequency according to age", Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Professional Paper , Government Printer, Sydney.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1913d), "The secular and annual fluctuations of deaths from several diseases in Australia: scarlet fever, measles, whooping- cough, diphtheria and croup, typhoid, diarrhoea and enteritis and dysentery, and the frequency of death according to age of this last",

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Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Professional Paper , Government Printer, Sydney,

KNIBBS, G.H. (1917), The Mathematical Theory of Population, of its Character and Fluctuations, and of the Factors which influence them, being an Examination of the general scheme of Statistical Representation, with deductions of necessary formulae; the whole being applied to the data of the Australian Census of 1911, and to the elucidation of Australian Population Statistics generally, Appendix A of Census of the Commonwealth of Australia taken for the night between the 2nd and 3rd April, 1911: Volume 1. Statistician's Report including Appendices: 1-466 [Reprinted in 1976 by Arno Press, New York], Me Carrón, Bird & Co., Melbourne.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1919), "The problems of population: food supply and migration", Scientia (Rivista di Scienzia), Series II, 26, 100: 11-12.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1920a), "The organisation of imperial statistics", Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 1920: 201-14.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1920b), "The private wealth of Australia and its growth", in M. ATKINSON (ed.), Australia: Economic and Political Studies.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1921), "Statistics in regard to empire and world development", Report of the 15th Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science: 181-204.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1925a), "Multiple births, their characters and laws mathematically considered", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 59.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1925b), "The human sex-ratio and the reduction of masculinity through large families", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 59.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1926), "Note on the occurrence of triplets among multiple births", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 60.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1927a), "Protegenesis and ex-nuptial natality in Australia", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 61.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1927b), "Rigorous analysis of the phenomena of multiple births", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 61.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1927c), "Proof of the laws of twin births", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 61.

KNIBBS, G.H. (1928), The Shadow of the World's Future: the Earth's Population Possibilities and the Consequences of the Present Rate of Increase of the Earth's Inhabitants, Ernest Benn, London.

KNIBBS, G.H. and BARFORD, F.W. (1914), "Studies in statistical representation: Curves, their logarithmic homologues, and anti- logarithmic generatrices; as applied to statistical data", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 48: 473-96.

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KNIBBS, G.H. and WICKENS, C.H. (1913), "The determination and uses of population norms representing the constitution of populations according to age and sex, and also according to age only11, Transactions of the 15th International Congress on Hygiene and Demography (Washington, 1912), 6: 352-78.

LANCASTER, H.O. (n.d.), Charles Henry Wickens, 1872-1939: Personal History, Typescript held in library of the Australian Bureau of Statistics , Canberra .

NAIRN, B. and SERLE, G. (eds), (1983), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 9; 1891-1939, Gil-Las, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.

RADCLIFFE-BROWN, A.R. (1930), "Former numbers and distribution of the Australian Aborigines", in Australia, Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, No23 - 1930: 687-96.

SANGER, M. (ed.), (1927), Proceedings of the World Population Conference held at the Salle Centrale, Geneva, August 29th to September 3rd, 1927, Edward Arnold & Co., London.

WHO'S WHO, (1941), Who Was Who, Volume III, 1929-40, Adam & Charles Black, London.

WICKENS, C.H. (1909), "The methods of ascertaining the rates of mortality amongst the general population of a country, district, or town, or amongst different classes of such population by means of returns of population, births, deaths, and migration", Abstract of Messenger Prize Essay, 1905, Journal of the Institute of Actuaries. 43: 23-84.

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WICKENS, C.H. (1910), "Census taking", Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics Professional Paper [Reprinted from Proceedings of the 14th Session of the Actuarial Society of Australia: 211-7], Government Printer, Melbourne.

WICKENS, C.H. (1911), "An extension of the principle underlying Woolhouse's method of graduation", Commonwealth Bureau of Statistics Professional Paper [Reprinted from Proceedings of the 15th Session of the Actuarial Society of Australia: 243-7], Government Printer, Melbourne.

WICKENS, C.H. (1913), "Investigations concerning a law of infant mortality", in Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Professional Papers (3) [Reprinted from Report of the XIV Session of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, Melbourne, January 1913], Government Printer, Melbourne.

WICKENS, C.H. (1917), "On the materials for, and the construction of tables of natality, issue and orphanhood", paper read at the Australian Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 18 August 1914, Appendix B of Census of the Commonwealth of Australia taken for the night between the 2nd and 3rd April, 1911: Volume 1. Statistician's Report including Appendices: 467-80, McCarron & Bird, Melbourne.

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WICKENS, C.H. (1922), ffThe Australian Census of 1921", Proceedings of the 26th Session of the Actuarial Society of Australia: 7-10.

WICKENS, C.H. (1923a), "Approximate integration", Journal of the Institute of Actuaries. 54: 209-13.

WICKENS, C.H. (1923b), "Human capital", Proceedings of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science. 16: 536-54.

WICKENS, C.H. (1923c), "Calculus and probability", Proceedings of the 28th Sesión of the Actuarial Society of Australia: 1-3.

WICKENS, C.H. (1924a), "Approximate differentiation", Journal of the Institute of Actuaries, 55: 207-10.

WICKENS, C.H. (1924b), "Presidential address", Proceedings of the 28th Session of the Actuarial Society of Australia: 1-5.

WICKENS, C.H. (1924c), "The wealth of Australia - a new inventory estimate", Proceedings of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, 17: 556-63.

WICKENS, C.H. (1924d), "A new Australian life table: probability of death for various causes", Proceedings of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, 17: 551-2.

WICKENS, C.H. (1925a), "Approximate differentiation", Journal of the Institute of Actuaries, 56: 116-7.

WICKENS, C.H. (1925b), "Australian population: its nature and growth", Economic Record t 1: 1-16.

WICKENS, C.H. (1925c), "Incomplete certification of causes of death in relation to vital statistics", Health, 3: 5-8.

WICKENS, C.H. (1925d), "H.A. Smith, FSS. Late Government Statistician of New South Wales", Economic Record, 1: 144.

WICKENS, C.H. (1926a), "The values of P at various rates of interest by different mortality tables", Journal xof the Institute of Actuaries. 57: 281-3.

WICKENS, C.H. (1926b), "A note on public debt statistics", Economic Record, 2: 79-84.

WICKENS, C.H. (1926c), "The valuation of life interests and reversions for taxation purposes", Proceedings of the 31st Session of the Actuarial Society of Australia: 41-4.

WICKENS, C.H. (1926d), "Productive efficiency", Proceedings of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, 18: 584-95.

WICKENS, C.H. (1927a), "Australia and its immigrants", in M. SÄNGER (ed.), Proceedings of the World Population Conference held at the Salle Centrale, Geneva, August 29th to September 3rd, 1927, Edward Arnold & Co., London.



WICKENS, C.H. (1927b), "Vitality of white races in low latitudes", Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 40, 1: 17-24 [Reprinted in Economic Record, 3: 117-26] .

WICKENS, C.H. (1927c), "Social insurance in Australia", Proceedings of the 8th International Congress of Actuaries, 1: 145-60.

WICKENS, C.H. (1927d), "Australian productive efficiency", Economic Record, 3: 175-88.

WICKENS, C.H. (1928a), "Australian population: its nature and growth", in P.D. PHILLIPS and G.L. WOOD (eds), The Peopling of Australia, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.

WICKENS, C.H. (1928b), "Relative significance of primary and secondary production", Economic Record, 4: 39-52.

WICKENS, C.H. (1929a), "Allocation of factory output", Economic Record, 5: 226-33.

WICKENS, C.H. (1929b), "Some statistical aspects of Australian industry", Economic Record, 5: 54-74.

WICKENS, C.H. (1929c), "Sir George Knibbs (1859-1929)", Economic Record, 5: 334-5.

WICKENS, C.H. (1930a), "Comparative costs of living", Economic Record, 6: 61-7.

WICKENS, C.H. (1930b), "Australian mortality", Journal of the Institute of Actuaries, 61: 165-213.

WILSON, R. (1986), Address at a reception to mark the 50th anniversary of his appointment as Commonwealth Statistician, held at the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, 29 April 1986, printed type-script.

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