Robert Loynes, known to most as Bob, graduated in 1956 from Cambridge where he had been an undergraduate in Mathematics at Trinity College. He did not embark immediately on an academic career, taking instead a job as a mathematician with Ferranti in Manchester. When he did return to Cambridge, he took the unusual step of spending a year on the Diploma in Statistics with its more practical orientation, graduating with distinction in 1959, before embarking on a PhD of a more theoretical kind, completing this in 1963. This breadth of interest from the practical to the theoretical was maintained throughout his career. After his PhD, he had a two-year interlude as a lecturer at Manchester University before returning to Cambridge as a lecturer and a fellowship at Trinity Hall. He stayed in Cambridge for 4 years, until he moved in 1969 to a Chair at in the Department of Probability and Statistics at the University of Sheffield, joining Joe Gani, the founding professor. He retired from Sheffield in 1999, becoming Emeritus Professor and maintaining a close connection with the department for many years, continuing to teach a final year course in Practical and Applied Statistics which he had pioneered.

Bob’s publication record started in 1962, a year before the award of his PhD, with a seminal paper in queuing theory proving stability for a single server infinite capacity queue under natural conditions. The generality of his proof provided impetus to the study of stability of stationary and ergodic systems which is still flourishing though he himself moved away from the area. His research record of more than 50 papers and 2 books has a wide range, from the very theoretical and abstract, encompassing queuing systems, martingales, spectral theory of time series and functional analysis, through to developing ideas of much more immediate practical importance on methods for refining linear and non-linear statistical models with studies of partial residuals and local influence, being awarded a ScD by the University of Cambridge in 1981. He served on the Society’s Series B Editorial Panel from 1966 to 1969 and three periods on the Research Section Committee between 1969 and 1982 and as member of Council 1978–1982 as well as on the Editorial Panel of the Annals of Statistics for many years.

Bob always had a broad view of what an academic, and a professor, should do. The first major indication of this came in 1972–1973 when he took a year’s leave to work for UNESCO at the University of Islamabad in Pakistan, as part of UNESCO support for developing University systems and adventurously driving back to the United Kingdom on completion of his period there. In the 1980s, he was involved with the UN Economic Commission for Africa, advising on training statisticians and on setting up Statistics Departments in Universities. Towards the end of the 1980s, his interest in training issues lead to his serving as Chair of the ISI Task Force in Tertiary and Technical Education (1979–1989) and involvement with the Statistical Office of the European Community, on the EUROSTAT project, for which, in due course, he became a course presenter (in both English and French). For 25 years, he interviewed for the Civil Service Statistician grade and was active in University Military Education Committees at National and Yorkshire levels, maintaining connections with the latter long after he had formally retired from the University. Within the University of Sheffield he served at various times as Head of Department, Director of the Manchester-Sheffield School of Probability & Statistics, member of Senate and Council and as Dean, Faculty of Pure Science.

Bob's interest in what it is useful to teach led to the introduction of a very practical stream into Sheffield’s undergraduate and MSc curricula. He was involved in the teaching of the undergraduate component since he started it. A book on the philosophy of this course (The Teaching of Practical Statistics co-authored with colleague Clive Anderson, 1987) has been an important milestone in curriculum development on the wider stage.

Bob's friendly manner, his wide interests (including playing the bagpipes, in demand at Burns Nights and Caledonian Society events) and extensive knowledge made him a valued colleague and friend to all those whose careers he nurtured in the Department, several of whom had indeed started their University education with his lectures on random variables on their arrival in Cambridge. His apparently relaxed attitude to administration belied an underlying determination and his finely tuned assessment of the likelihood of future consequences as ‘perhaps even probably’ became a fond legacy among his colleagues long after he left the University.

He is survived by his wife Jean, three children and six grandchildren.

Written by Nick Fieller who died in 2017, submitted for publication by the Royal Statistical Society’s Obituaries Commissioning Panel

罗伯特·洛因斯（Robert Loynes），被大多数人称为鲍勃（Bob），于 1956 年毕业于剑桥大学，当时他是三一学院数学系的一名本科生。他没有立即开始学术生涯，而是在曼彻斯特的 Ferranti 担任数学家。当他回到剑桥后，他采取了不同寻常的步骤，花了一年的时间攻读更注重实践的统计学文凭，并于 1959 年以优异成绩毕业，然后攻读了更具理论性的博士学位，并于 1963 年完成。在他的整个职业生涯中，他都保持着从实践到理论的广泛兴趣。获得博士学位后，他在曼彻斯特大学担任了两年的讲师，然后回到剑桥担任讲师并在三一学院获得奖学金。他在剑桥呆了4年，直到 1969 年他调到谢菲尔德大学概率与统计系担任系主任，与创始教授 Joe Gani 一起工作。他于 1999 年从谢菲尔德退休，成为名誉教授，多年来与该系保持着密切联系，继续教授他开创的实用和应用统计学的最后一年课程。

Bob 的发表记录始于 1962 年，也就是他获得博士学位的前一年，他发表了一篇排队论方面的开创性论文，证明了自然条件下单个服务器无限容量队列的稳定性。他证明的普遍性推动了对平稳和遍历系统稳定性的研究，尽管他本人离开了该地区，但这些研究仍在蓬勃发展。他的 50 多篇论文和 2 本书的研究记录范围很广，从非常理论和抽象的，包括排队系统、鞅、时间序列和泛函分析的谱理论，到发展对方法具有更直接的实际重要性的想法通过部分残差和局部影响的研究改进线性和非线性统计模型，于 1981 年被剑桥大学授予科学博士学位。多年的统计年鉴。

对于学者和教授应该做什么，鲍勃总是有着广阔的视野。这方面的第一个主要迹象出现在 1972 年至 1973 年，当时他请了一年假到巴基斯坦伊斯兰堡大学为教科文组织工作，作为教科文组织支持发展大学系统的一部分，并在完成他的学业后冒险驾车返回英国。那里的时期。80 年代，他参与了联合国非洲经济委员会的工作，就培训统计学家和在大学设立统计系提供建议。到 1980 年代末，他对培训问题的兴趣导致他担任 ISI 高等教育和技术教育工作组主席（1979-1989 年），并参与欧洲共同体统计局的 EUROSTAT 项目，在适当的时候，他成为了一名课程主持人（英语和法语）。25 年来，他参加了公务员统计员级别的面试，并活跃于国家和约克郡级别的大学军事教育委员会，在他正式从大学退休后很长一段时间内仍与后者保持联系。在谢菲尔德大学，他曾多次担任系主任、曼彻斯特-谢菲尔德概率与统计学院院长、参议院和理事会成员以及纯科学学院院长。

Bob 对教什么有用的兴趣导致在谢菲尔德的本科和理学硕士课程中引入了一个非常实用的流。他从一开始就参与了本科部分的教学。关于本课程理念的一本书（与同事 Clive Anderson 合着的 The Teaching of Practical Statistics，1987 年）已成为更广阔舞台上课程开发的重要里程碑。

Bob 友善的举止、广泛的兴趣（包括吹奏风笛，在 Burns Nights 和 Caledonian Society 活动中很受欢迎）和广博的知识使他成为所有在他的部门培养的职业生涯的重要同事和朋友，其中一些人确实开始了他们的大学教育以及他在抵达剑桥时关于随机变量的讲座。在他离开大学很久之后，他对管理的明显放松态度掩盖了一种潜在的决心，他对未来后果可能性的精确评估“也许甚至可能”成为他同事们喜爱的遗产。

他身后留下妻子珍、三个孩子和六个孙辈。

由 2017 年去世的 Nick Fieller 撰写，由皇家统计学会讣告委员会提交出版