His partnership over several decades with Fred Smith, Alistair Scott, John Rao and Gad Nathan led to some of the most significant developments in survey methodology since 1945. It has been a tremendous privilege to have belonged to those generations who got to know Tim not only from his written work, but through the kindness of him and his family, and through his acquaintance, and getting to know those who held him in the greatest regard professionally and as a colleague. His contributions will benefit future generations of statisticians. This very special man, with the support of his caring family, played a leading role in official statistics for half a century, in the United Kingdom, Canada, the Antipodes and Europe. Dennis Trewin and I had occasional zoom calls with Tim after Jill died. Tim was then engaged in the justice sector. When Shirley and I returned to New Zealand, I continued to visit Tim and Jill when in the UK, the last time was in 2018. I doubt that I was the only one whom Jill kindly tolerated for shifting the conversation from social or national issues to some methodological or statistical matters, when seeking advice or solace about from Tim.
Shirley and I enjoyed a good number of visits down to the New Forest, and the inevitable welcome from Jill and Tim. I was fortunate to have Tim push me into applying for the job he was retiring from, and was lucky not only to be appointed, but to have the benefit of Tim’s generosity in supporting me when that was inevitably necessary. Most other contact was at international statistical conferences after Tim became Director of the Office for National Statistics, where Tim’s insightfulness not only on methodological matters but on constitutional dimensions of official statistics often added interest and insights on such critical matters. In my visits to the UK and Europe during the next two decades, I invariably visited Tim and Jill in Southampton, often also enjoying the company of Tim’s near neighbours Fred and Ruth Smith. I remember even when later in other countries, if at a conference it was not unusual for Tim to take off in his running gear. We were not strong enough to reciprocate with our statistical expertise, but we certainly always had someone joining Tim on his regular daily run around Wellington. Being in a relatively new methodology group, about ten years old, it was exciting for us kiwis to learn of the place of methodology in Statistics Canada from Tim, and comparisons with the very devolved UK system.
Tim was extraordinarily wise about official statistics and how methodological practices were being challenged in many areas, in survey design, quality assurance data analysis in particular. The first ever paper that I gave to a statistics conference was on the application of the Fellegi-Holt method of imputation to the New Zealand population census, making this visit a personal bonus. It was an inspirational visit for us, for several reasons. It was 1981 that I met Tim, while Professor of Statistics at Southampton, when he visited Statistics New Zealand for about three weeks while he was on a longer visit to Alistair Scott at the University of Auckland. Professor of Statistics and UK Chief Statistician - Len Cook Tim was a collaborator and personal friend of Alistair Scott for several decades, and well known to those involved in methodology in official statistics. Tim Holt passed away suddenly on 15 November 2022
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