Editing Adolphe Quetelet (section)

== Biography ==
Adolphe was born in [[Ghent]] (which, at the time was a part of the new [[First French Republic|French Republic]]). He was the son of François-Augustin-Jacques-Henri Quetelet, a Frenchman and Anne Françoise Vandervelde, a Flemish woman. His father was born at [[Ham, France|Ham]], [[Picardy]], and being of a somewhat adventurous spirit, he crossed the English Channel and became both a British citizen and the secretary of a Scottish nobleman. In that capacity, he traveled with his employer on the Continent, particularly spending time in Italy. At about 31, he settled in Ghent and was employed by the city, where Adolphe was born, the fifth of nine children, several of whom died in childhood.

Francois died when Adolphe was only seven years old. Adolphe studied at the Ghent Lycée, where he afterwards started teaching mathematics in 1815 at the age of 19.  In 1819, he moved to the Athenaeum in Brussels and in the same year he completed his [[Thesis|dissertation]] (''De quibusdam locis geometricis, necnon de curva focal &ndash; Of some new properties of the focal distance and some other curves'').

Quetelet received a doctorate in [[mathematics]] in 1819 from the [[University of Ghent]]. Shortly thereafter, the young man set out to convince government officials and private donors to build an astronomical [[observatory]] in [[Brussels]]; he succeeded in 1828.
He became a member of the [[Royal Academy]] in 1820. He lectured at the museum for sciences and letters and at the Belgian Military School. In 1825, he became a correspondent of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands, in 1827 he became a member. In 1839, he was elected as a member of the [[American Philosophical Society]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=1839&year-max=1839&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|access-date=2021-04-09|website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref> From 1841 to 1851, he was a supernumerary associate in the institute, and when it became [[Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences]] he became foreign member.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dwc.knaw.nl/biografie/pmknaw/?pagetype=authorDetail&aId=PE00002452 |title=Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet (1796–1874) |publisher=[[Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences]] |access-date=20 July 2015}}</ref> In 1850, he was elected a foreign member of the [[Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences]].

Quetelet also founded several statistical journals and societies, and was especially interested in creating international cooperation among statisticians. He encouraged the creation of a statistical section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA), which later became the [[Royal Statistical Society]], of which he became the first overseas member. In 1853 he chaired both the [[International Meteorological Organization|International Maritime Conference]] and the [[first International Statistical Congress]]. He was a founding member of the first ''[[Société des douze]]''.

In 1855, Quetelet developed [[apoplexy]], which diminished but did not end his scientific activity.{{citation needed|date=May 2022}}

He died in [[Brussels]] on 17 February 1874, and is buried in the [[Brussels Cemetery]].

In 1825, he married Cécile-Virginie Curtet.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.genealogieonline.nl/magnum-opus/I71480.php |title=Cecile Virginie Curtet (1801-1858) » Magnum Opus » Genealogie Online |access-date=15 June 2018 |archive-date=15 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180615193210/https://www.genealogieonline.nl/magnum-opus/I71480.php |url-status=dead }}</ref>