Hogben, Lancelot Thomas (1895–1975)

English zoologist and geneticist who wrote the best-selling Mathematics for the Millions (1933). He applied mathematical principles to genetics and was concerned with the way statistical methods were used in the biological and behavioural sciences.

Hogben was born in Southsea, Hampshire, and studied at Cambridge and London. Imprisoned as a conscientious objector in 1916 during World War I, he was released only when his health deteriorated seriously. He held various academic posts in the UK, Canada, and South Africa, becoming professor of social biology at London University 1930. During World War II he was put in charge of the medical statistics records for the British army. After the war he became professor of medical statistics at the University of Birmingham, where he remained until he retired 1961.

Hogben first began to try to apply mathematical principles to the study of genetics in the 1930s, with particular reference to his investigation of generations of the fruitfly Drosophila in relation to research on heredity in humans.