Editing Harold Wilson (section)

===War service===
On the outbreak of the [[Second World War]], Wilson volunteered for military service, but was classed as a specialist and moved into the civil service instead. For much of this time, he was a research assistant to [[William Beveridge]], the Master of University College, working on the issues of unemployment and the trade cycle. Wilson later became a statistician and economist for the coal industry. He was Director of Economics and Statistics at the [[Ministry of Fuel and Power]] in 1943–44 and was made an [[OBE]] for his services.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kynaston |first=David |author-link=David Kynaston |title=Austerity Britain 1945–51 |publisher=[[Bloomsbury Publishing|Bloomsbury]] |year=2008 |pages=236, 237 |isbn=978-0-7475-9923-4}}</ref>

He was to remain passionately interested in statistics, becoming a Fellow of the [[Royal Statistical Society]] in 1943.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Moore |first=Peter&nbsp;G. |title=Obituary: James Harold Wilson 1916–95. |journal=Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (Statistics in Society) |volume=159 |number=1 |year=1996 |page=167 |jstor=2983476|doi=10.1111/j.1467-985X.1996.tb00710.x }}</ref> As [[President of the Board of Trade]], he was the driving force behind the Statistics of Trade Act 1947, which is still the authority governing most economic statistics in [[UK|Britain]]. He was instrumental as prime minister in appointing [[Claus Moser]] as head of the [[Central Statistical Office, UK|Central Statistical Office]], and was president of the [[Royal Statistical Society]] between 1972 and 1973.{{Cn|date=February 2025}}