The Fisher Papers and The Fisher Digital Archive

After Fisher’s death his extensive collection of research papers, writings and correspondence with scientists, and all rights therein, were deposited with the Barr Smith Library. Fisher’s correspondence alone consists of some four metres of letters to and from his more than 900 correspondents.

The Fisher Digitisation Project was initiated by Emeritus Professor Henry Bennett, Fisher’s former student, research assistant, colleague and friend who worked with Fisher at Cambridge. Bennett was also closely associated with him when Fisher came to Adelaide in 1959 to work at the CSIRO Division of Mathematical Statistics, with headquarters then on the University's North Terrace campus.

Funding for the project was authorised by Professor Bennett from the R.A. Fisher Collected Papers Fund, created from sales of his Collected Papers, edited by Bennett and published in five volumes by the University of Adelaide from 1971 to 1974. Further funding was made available from the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) Learning and Teaching Development budget.

Oxford University Press also gave permission for the digitisation of two volumes of selected correspondence Natural selection, heredity and eugenics (1983) and Statistical inference and analysis (1990) also compiled by Professor Bennett.

On display:

• Photograph: Professor M.H. Belz, Fisher and Henry Bennett in garden of Genetics Department, Cambridge, 1952 Fisher Papers. Series 25.2: Album of official functions … etc 1945-62
• Collected Papers of R.A. Fisher. Compiled and edited by J.H. Bennett. Adelaide: The University of Adelaide, 1971-74. 5 volumes

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Fisher’s Legacy at the University of Adelaide

Sir Ronald Fisher Memorial Scholarships

Fisher’s literary executors were Professors Henry Bennett and Alf Cornish in Adelaide and Doctors R. Race and Frank Yates in England. The royalties from Fisher’s works published by Oliver & Boyd were to be shared between the University of Adelaide and his family. The funds were lodged in the R.A. Fisher Royalties Fund.

In 1962 the University established a Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher Memorial Fund towards two scholarships, one in genetics and one in mathematical statistics. Two Sir Ronald Fisher Memorial Scholarships valued at $5,000 each are awarded each year.

Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher Prize

In 1965 Professor Henry Bennett donated £150 to establish a Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher Prize for the best work and examination result in Genetics. Two prizes worth $600 a year are available. The current Vice-Chancellor, Peter Rathjen, was a former recipient.

The R.A. Fisher Laboratories

In 1963, at the suggestion of  Professor Bennett, the new Biological Sciences building that housed the Department of Genetics was renamed the R.A. Fisher Laboratories. The building was designed and built by Bagot & Co. in 1961 at the eastern end of the Maths Lawns. it was demolished in 1998 due to asbestos and structural problems. Genetics is now taught as a component of the Bachelor of Science degree.

On display:

• Photograph: The R.A. Fisher Laboratories 1960s. (University of Adelaide Archives)
• Letter from Professor Henry Bennett to the Acting Vice-Chancellor Sir Mark Mitchell suggesting that the Biological Sciences Building be named after R.A. Fisher. (Bennett Papers Series 2)

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The Sir Ronald Fisher Lecture Series

The origin of the Sir Ronald Fisher Lecture series was a substantial gift from Professor Peter Parsons, a former student of the University of Adelaide. He earned a PhD in Genetics from Cambridge University and pursued a two-decade career as Professor of Genetics at La Trobe University. In a letter to the University’s Vice Chancellor Kevin Marjoribanks he explained that:

In early 1990 the University Executive Committee endorsed the Faculty of Science’s recommendation for the establishment of the Sir Ronald Fisher Lecture as endowed by Professor Parsons. The rules stipulated it was to be given “in a field to which Sir Ronald contributed: namely, Genetics, Evolutionary Biology or Statistics”.

The Inaugural Fisher Lecture was given by Professor Roger Holmes of Griffith University in August 1990, the year corresponding with the centenary of Fisher’s birth. The main facilitator of Parson’s gift, Professor J.H. (Henry) Bennett of the Department of Genetics, noted that the Fisher centenary was also being commemorated “at scientific meetings in England, U.S.A., Japan and elsewhere.”

The following year Professor Parsons, pleased by success of the first lectures, further endowed the lecture series. Parsons himself presented the next lecture in March 1995 on “Conservation Strategies: adaptation to stress versus the preservation of genetic diversity.”

The lectures apparently went into abeyance for several years until reactivated in the mid-2000s. Since then the Sir Ronald Fisher Lecture has been given by such prominent scholars as Professor David Haig of Harvard University; Professor Peter Donnelly of Oxford University; Professor Ken Wolfe of Trinity College Dublin; Professor R. Dennis Cook of the University Minnesota; and Professor Terry Speed of the University of California, Berkeley. The latest lecture in July 2019 was presented by Professor Kathy Belov AO, Professor of Comparative Genomics in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney. Professor Belov’s topic was “Saving the Tasmanian Devil from extinction”.

Andrew Cook, University of Adelaide Archives