Finney was born in Latchford, Cheshire, Warrington. In his interview with MacNeill, Finney describes his background: "My family were never wealthy but never in want". His paternal grandfather was a schoolmaster, and his father was an accountant in the steel industry. David was the eldest child; he had no sisters. In the Preface to his "Probit Analysis" book, Finney thanks his father Robt. G. S. Finney for assistance.
After returning from India, he moved to the University of Aberdeen where he became Reader in Statistics and also established a Unit of Statistics funded by the Agricultural Research Council, which was to provide a service for Scotland modelled on that provided by Rothamsted for England. The Agricultural Research Council moved the Unit of Statistics to the University of Edinburgh in 1966 and Finney, who moved to Edinburgh with it, became the first Professor of Statistics at the university and well as being the Director of the Unit of Statistics. He served as president of the Royal Statistical Society in 1973–4. He retired from his position at Edinburgh in 1984.
During the 1960s he became involved in the field of drug safety, providing important advice both to the fledgling UK system of medicines safety and to efforts by WHO to create an international system of pharmacovigilance. In 2002 he returned to contact with the Uppsala Monitoring Centre, which published an anthology of his writings about statistical methods and drug safety. He was also involved with Bill Inman in the setting-up of the Drug Safety Research Unit.[10] Finney received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1981.[11] In 1981, Finney became a founding member of the World Cultural Council.[12]
Works
Probit Analysis, Cambridge University Press, 1947
Statistical methods in biological assay, Hafner, 1952; Griffin, 1971, ISBN978-0-85264-014-2
Experimental design and its statistical basis, University of Chicago Press, 1955
Statistics for mathematicians: an introduction, Oliver & Boyd, 1968
References
^Bristow, AF; Barrowcliffe, T; Bangham, DR (22 September 2006). "Standardization of biological medicines: the first hundred years, 1900-2000". Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London. 60 (3): 271–89. doi:10.1098/rsnr.2006.0153. PMID17212227. S2CID19811694.