‘Extending the scope of the profession’ is such a well-worn cliché that one could define the wider field effectively, if ungrammatically, as the place professional scope extends or can extend into.

F. A. A. Menzler raised the matter to the level of public importance at the Annual General Meeting of the Institute in 1924, exercising the Fellow's democratic right of intervention. At the invitation of the Council, he developed his ideas in a paper submitted to a Special General Meeting of members on 26 October 1925. He drew attention to the growing importance and recognition of statistics as a tool of government and of management. He claimed that the actuary was ipso facto a trained statistician, and that actuaries might reasonably expect to fill the increasing number of statistical posts then becoming available. Menzler also showed that the membership of the Institute had grown substantially in numbers during the preceding twenty years.