# Martin Beale

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**Evelyn Martin Lansdowne Beale** [FRS](/source/Fellow_of_the_Royal_Society)[1] (8 September 1928 – 23 December 1985) was an [applied mathematician](/source/Applied_mathematician) and statistician who was one of the pioneers of [mathematical programming](/source/Mathematical_programming).[2]

## Education and career

Beale was born in [Stanwell Moor](/source/Stanwell_Moor) in the [Middlesex](/source/Middlesex) county (now in [Surrey](/source/Surrey)) of England. His father, Evelyn Stewart Lansdowne Beale, was a senior physicist at the [Anglo-Persian Oil Company](/source/Anglo-Persian_Oil_Company).[1] His mother, Muriel Rebecca (Betsy) Slade, was a leader in the [Women's Institute](/source/Women's_Institute) and the great-niece of [Edmond Warre](/source/Edmond_Warre).[3]

Beale was educated at [Winchester College](/source/Winchester_College) and at [Trinity College, Cambridge](/source/Trinity_College,_Cambridge), graduating with First Class Honours in mathematics in 1949 and gaining a diploma in mathematical statistics in 1950.[4][5] He then joined the Mathematics Group at the UK [Admiralty Research Laboratory](/source/Admiralty_Research_Laboratory), working under [Steven Vajda](/source/Steven_Vajda) for 11 years, except for a leave of absence in 1957/58 to assist the Statistical Techniques Research Group at [Princeton University](/source/Princeton_University).[4][5][6][7] In 1955 he extended [George Dantzig](/source/George_Dantzig)'s [Simplex Algorithm](/source/Simplex_Algorithm) to minimise a [quadratic function](/source/Quadratic_function).[8]

In 1961, Beale became a founder member of a computer services company CEIR (Corporation for Economic and Industrial Research), which [BP](/source/BP) bought and renamed Scicon, and in 1967 he became visiting professor at [Imperial College, London](/source/Imperial_College,_London).[4][9][10]

## Honors

Beale was chairman of the [Mathematical Programming Society](/source/Mathematical_Programming_Society) from 1974 to 1976, vice-president of the [Royal Statistical Society](/source/Royal_Statistical_Society) from 1978 to 1980, a Fellow of the [British Computer Society](/source/British_Computer_Society), and a member of the [International Statistical Institute](/source/International_Statistical_Institute). In 1979, he was elected a [Fellow of the Royal Society](/source/Fellow_of_the_Royal_Society) "for his applications of mathematical and statistical techniques to industrial problems and for his contributions to the theory of mathematical programming", and he was elected to the Council of the [Royal Society](/source/Royal_Society) in 1984.[1] He was awarded the Silver Medal of the Operational Research Society in 1980, and became vice-president of the [Institute of Mathematics and its Applications](/source/Institute_of_Mathematics_and_its_Applications). He was also non-executive chairman of Beale International Technology.[6]

*[The Times](/source/The_Times)* suggested that he "used his blend of theory and state-of-the-art practice to encourage several generations of young mathematicians and computer scientists," and that his "many papers and his seminal book *Mathematical Programming in Practice* were major influences in their field, with their succinctness and clarity."[6]

Beale's [FRS](/source/Fellow_of_the_Royal_Society) memoir mentioned his "extraordinary skill" and "substantial contributions to knowledge".[1]

## Memorials

- The [Mathematical Programming Society](/source/Mathematical_Programming_Society) awards the "Beale–Orchard-Hays" Prize in memory of him and William Orchard-Hays.[11]
- The [Operational Research Society](/source/The_Operational_Research_Society) awards the [Beale Medal](/source/Beale_Medal) for "the most outstanding sustained contribution to Operational Research",[12] and hosts the Beale Lectures in his honour[13] as "one of OR's true greats".[14]
- A two-day symposium was held in his memory at the Royal Society in 1987.[15]
- The book *[Questions of Truth](/source/Questions_of_Truth)* is dedicated to him and Ruth Polkinghorne.[16]
- He makes a cameo appearance in [E.M. Delafield](/source/E.M._Delafield)'s *A Provincial Lady Goes Further*.[17][18]

## Publications

Beale produced over 100 scholarly papers[19] and two books:

- Beale, Evelyn Martin Lansdowne (1968). [*Mathematical programming in practice*](https://books.google.com/books?id=-bAyAAAAMAAJ). John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9780471060857.
- Beale, Evelyn Martin Landsdowne & MacKley, Lynne (1988). [*Introduction to optimization*](https://books.google.com/books?id=007vAAAAMAAJ&q=Introduction+to+Optimization++beale). Wiley. ISBN 9780471917601. (Based on his lecture notes and working papers at Scicon and edited by his former colleague Lynne Mackley.)

## Family

Beale was a son of Muriel Rebecca Beale [OBE](/source/OBE), descendant of [General Sir John Slade](/source/Sir_John_Slade,_1st_Baronet), grandniece of [Edmond Warre](/source/Edmond_Warre), niece of [Henry Adolphus Warre Slade](/source/Henry_Adolphus_Warre_Slade), daughter of Marcus Warre Slade [Queen's Counsel](/source/King's_Counsel), and first cousin of [Madelaine Slade](/source/Mirabehn).[17]

## References

1. Powell, M. J. D. (December 1987). "Evelyn Martin Lansdowne Beale. 8 September 1928 – 23 December 1985". *Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society*. **33**: 22–45. [doi:10.1098/rsbm.1987.0002](https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbm.1987.0002). [JSTOR 769945](https://www.jstor.org/stable/769945). [S2CID 62223612](https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:62223612)

1. Haley, Brian (1986). ["Evelyn Martin Lansdowne Beale, F.R.S.: 8 September 1928-23 December 1985: An Appreciation"](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1057/jors.1986.179). *Journal of the Operational Research Society*. **37** (11): 1027–1029. [doi:10.1057/jors.1986.179](https://doi.org/10.1057/jors.1986.179). [ISSN 0160-5682](https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0160-5682)

1. ["Obituary: Betsy Beale"](https://www.the-independent.com/news/people/obituary-betsy-beale-1469613.html). *The Independent*. 1993-12-28.

1. C-E-I-R handbook *new approaches to management control*, Jan 1963, p10 [http://sciconconnect.com/index.php?option=com_morfeoshow&task=view&gallery=3&Itemid=24](http://sciconconnect.com/index.php?option=com_morfeoshow&task=view&gallery=3&Itemid=24)

1. *Optima* 18, p1 [http://www.mathopt.org/Old-Optima-Issues/optima18.pdf](http://www.mathopt.org/Old-Optima-Issues/optima18.pdf)

1. Obituary in *[The Times](/source/The_Times)* 28 December 1985, p8

1. Forrest, J. J. H. & Tomlin, J. A. (2006). "Branch and bound, integer, and non-integer programming". *Annals of Operations Research*. **149**: 81–87. [doi:10.1007/s10479-006-0112-x](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-006-0112-x). [S2CID 15266569](https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:15266569)

1. Beale, E. M. L. (1955). "On Minimizing a Convex Function Subject to Linear Inequalities". *[Journal of the Royal Statistical Society](/source/Journal_of_the_Royal_Statistical_Society)*. **17** (2): 173–184. [doi:10.1111/j.2517-6161.1955.tb00191.x](https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2517-6161.1955.tb00191.x). [JSTOR 2983952](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2983952) The extension also applied to other [convex functions](/source/Convex_function) and to [linear programming](/source/Linear_programming) with [random variables](/source/Random_variable).

1. [http://sciconconnect.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=23&Itemid=42](http://sciconconnect.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=23&Itemid=42) Scicon was later sold to System Designers in the 1990s, and eventually to [EDS](/source/Electronic_Data_Systems).

1. See bio in [*Introduction to Optimization*](https://books.google.com/books?id=007vAAAAMAAJ).

1. [MPS Beale-Orchard-Hays Prize](http://www.mathprog.org/prz/boh.htm)

1. [OR Society website on Beale Medal](http://www.theorsociety.com/Pages/Awards/Beale.aspx)

1. [OR Society YouTube channel for Beale Lectures](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLo52A9r56pbtKD1MCJEtPheHDL2aGUAYn&si=PqqA93NLeEeFY9DC)

1. [OR Society website for 2021 Beale Lecture](https://www.theorsociety.com/events/beale/2021-beale-lecture/)

1. "Martin Beale memorial symposium". *ACM SIGNUM Newsletter*. **21** (3): 24. 1986-07-01. [doi:10.1145/1057958.1057962](https://doi.org/10.1145/1057958.1057962). [ISSN 0163-5778](https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0163-5778)

1. [Questions of Truth](/source/Questions_of_Truth) dedication page

1. ["Obituary: Betsy Beale"](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-betsy-beale-1469613.html). *The Independent*. 1993-12-28. Retrieved 2023-06-23.

1. ["Who's Who in EM Delafield"](http://www.starcourse.org/emd/emdwho.htm)

1. [Google Scholar results](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&sa=G&oi=qs&q=%22eml+beale%22+author:e-beale)

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