Arthur Roy Clapham - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Clapham was born in Norwich to George Clapham, an elementary school teacher and Dora Margaret Clapham, née Harvey. He was the oldest of three children and the only boy. He attended the City of Norwich School, where he sat the Cambridge Senior School Certificate in 1919 and Higher School Certificate in 1921. Clapham attended Downing College, Cambridge in 1922 after receiving a Minor Scholarship. He received a B.A. with First Class Honours and was awarded the Frank Smart Prize for Botany.

After completing his B.A., Clapham did graduate work in plant physiology under the supervision of Frederick Blackman before taking up a position as crop physiologist at the Rothamsted Agricultural Experimental Station where he worked with Ronald Fisher. Influenced by Fisher's work on statistical analysis and random sampling, Clapham worked on using small samples to reliably estimate wheat yields and designed the Ministry of Agriculture's protocol of sampling wheat crops to forecast crop yields. It was during this time period that he met his future wife, Brenda Stoessiger who was a research student working with Karl Pearson, a pioneer of mathematical statistics. According to Donald Piggott, it was probably through his connection to Fisher that Clapham met Stoessiger. Clapham received a Ph.D. from Cambridge in 1929 based on his work with Blackman in physiology and his work on sampling methods at Rothamsted.