The energetic, enterprising and prodigious Cambridge-trained mathematician, Karl Pearson (1857-1936) received the Goldsmid Chair of Applied Mathematics at University College London (UCL) in 1984, where he taught mathematical physics to engineering students. Searching further intellectual sustenance, he became the Gresham Professor of Geometry in 1890 and attracted more than 300 students to his lectures on the geometry of statistics. These lectures subsequently provided the impetus for Pearson to set up the Biometric School at UCL in 1893, but the lack of money made it difficult to pursue his longer term goals. Ten years later, the Worshipful Company of Drapers began to provide funding for his biometric programme, which made it possible to establish the Drapers’ Biometric Laboratory. The original grant enabled Pearson to purchase some mathematical instruments and hire two permanent teaching assistants along with a team of human calculators to produce a series of tables for mathematical statistics. The longer-term aim of the Drapers’ 30-year philanthropic investment was to establish the modern theory of statistics and to provide complete training in modern statistical methods when Pearson founded the Department of Applied Statistics in 1911 and set up the first ever degree course in mathematical statistics in 1917.