Correspondence concerning biometrics between David John Finney FRS and Richard Cormack Letters chiefly concern Richard Cormack and David Finney's mutual area of expertise, biometrics and statistics. Both sides of the correspondence are present with only one enclosure of a letter from a third party: Dr Arthur Rayner of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Natal, South Africa. What begins as a purely professional correspondence increasingly includes personal exchanges. The initial correspondence dated 1956 concerns the possible appointment of Cormack to a position under Finney's management at the University of Aberdeen, either at the Torry Research Station or within the Department of Statistics, and the deferment of Cormack's military service for the duration of the appointment. Cormack went on to register as a PhD student at the University of Aberdeen and was appointed Assistant in the Department of Statistics with effect 1 August 1956. The correspondence continues until 1997 and concerns potential research and early career opportunities for Cormack overseas and in Britain as well as the professional activities of both correspondents, including discussion of colleagues' work, lectures, meetings, and publications on biometrics including subject area journals and Finney and Cormack's own publications, notably Finney's book 'Statistics for Biologists' in 1980 and a paper by Cormack entitled 'A Test for Catchability' (1965). The letters include exchanges regarding Finney's development of the Statistics Department at the University of Aberdeen and statistics education at the University of Aberdeen and later at Edinburgh (where Finney and Cormack both moved in 1966 when the The Agricultural Research Council funded Unit of Statistics was also relocated). Statistcs education is discussed as part of various courses including ecology, botany and genetics and the involvement of both correspondents in several specific research projects is mentioned, including a Culterty Field Station research project on animal life present in mud (1964) and a fetiliser survey. The letters also cover statistics education more broadly and make comparison of academia and the field of statistics in the USA and Britain. Cormack spent 1964-65 at the Department of Mathematics, University of Washington, USA which he refers to in a letter of 13 July 1965 as a 'Pacific Wonderland' and returned to do further research there in subsequent years. Several of the letters are addressed from Finney at Harvard University Medical School, Department of Preventitive Medicine, where Finney spent a sabbatical year in 1962 - 1963. Both correspondents were involved with The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Royal Society of Edinburgh, International Statistical Institute (where Finney was Director of the Research Centre from 1987), Institute of Statisticians (merged with the Royal Statistical Society in 1993) and the Biometric Society. Activities with these organisations feature in the correspondence including comments on election of members and contributing, editing, reviewing and refereeing for their journal publications and those of other organisations. There is an extended exchange regarding the best editorial methods for presenting statistical findings in publications, including use of Pearson's formula, graphical representation, algebraic symbols and standradised English (correspondence dated 1991-1997, during which time Finney was on the Editorial Committe for the journal 'Biometrics'). There are some significant periods within the covering dates for which no letters are present in the collection. There are no letter for the years 1966-1971. 23 April 1956 - 11 October 1997