Manchester Statistical Society is a learned society

Learned society

A learned society is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline/profession, as well a group of disciplines. Membership may be open to all, may require possession of some qualification, or may be an honor conferred by election, as is the case with the oldest learned societies,...

 founded 1833 in Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

, England. It claims to be "the first organisation in Britain to study social problems systematically and to collect statistics for social purposes" and in 1834 to be "the first organisation to carry out a house-to-house social survey".. Few of the founders were statisticians

Statistics

Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

 in the modern sense but they were keen to improve conditions for ordinary people using statistical studies.

The society continues to date and holds regular meetings. Past presidents include M. S. Bartlett

M. S. Bartlett

Maurice Stevenson Bartlett FRS was an English statistician who made particular contributions to the analysis of data with spatial and temporal patterns...

 and Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw

Kathleen Ollerenshaw

Dame Kathleen Mary Ollerenshaw, née Timpson, DBE is a British mathematician and politician. Deaf since the age of eight, she loved doing arithmetic problems as a child. As a young woman, she attended St Leonards School and Sixth Form College in St Andrews, Scotland where today the house of young...

.