The son of a greengrocer, Durbin was born in Widnes, where he attended the Wade Deacon Grammar School. He studied mathematics at St John\'s College, Cambridge where his contemporaries included David Cox and Denis Sargan. After wartime service in the Army Operational Research Group, he worked as a statistician for two years with the British Boot, Shoe and Allied Trades Research Association and took a postgraduate diploma in mathematical statistics at Cambridge, supervised by Henry Daniels.\n', 'After two years at the department of applied economics in Cambridge, Durbin joined the London School of Economics in 1950 and was appointed professor of statistics in 1961, a post he held until his retirement in 1988.\n', 'He served as president of the International Statistical Institute in 1983–5 and of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) in 1986–7. In 2008 he was awarded the highest distinction of the RSS, the Guy Medal in Gold (having previously been awarded both the Silver and Bronze medals). The citation read: \n', '

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