My friend and colleague Peter Lee, who has died aged 76, was a lecturer in mathematics at the University of York and provost of Wentworth College there.
Peter was a specialist in statistics and an enthusiastic advocate for Bayesian statistics, which concerns subjective belief but teaches us how to adjust our beliefs in the light of evidence. Thus, people who start out with different but reasonable opinions will, following Bayes’s prescription, converge to a common belief. Peter’s book Bayesian Statistics: An Introduction (1989) is a standard textbook, its most recent edition published in 2012.
Peter was prominent in university affairs and defended staff interests as treasurer of the local branch of the Association of University Teachers. As provost he did a great deal to improve the experience of students.
He grew up in Leicester, the son of Alfred Lee, a technical representative, and his wife, Margaret (nee Crow), and on leaving Kibworth Beauchamp grammar school he studied at the University of Liverpool, where he gained a first in mathematics and won the Ronald Hudson prize for geometry and a Derby scholarship. As an outstanding scholar, he was allowed to “have a go” on a computer. For his doctorate at Churchill College, Cambridge, he studied mathematical statistics. He was a fellow of Peterhouse College before taking up his lecturership at York in 1972. On retiring in 2005, he was appointed an honorary fellow of York University.
A man of wide culture, Peter loved books, which he devoured voraciously. He was always ready with an apt, and often humorous, quotation. He was a founding member and treasurer of the York Bibliographical Society, spoke fluent Russian and travelled widely in Russia and elsewhere. He put his impressive voice to good use as quizmaster in the Charles XII and Wellington Arms pubs.
The words “affable” and “convivial” might have been coined to apply to Peter. He delighted in the company of students, as did they in his. Many of his past students remember him with the greatest affection. Some of them travelled great distances to see him in his final days. His May Day parties were a high point in the university calendar: for two hours Peter would stand behind a cauldron liberally dispensing a fearsome concoction of champagne, cider, vodka and peach slices (and who knows what else) that was the ruin of many an unsuspecting new guest.
Peter is survived by his sister, Penni, his niece, Claudia, and his great-nephew, George.
