Although a number of earlier researchers had used the geometric mean as a convenient statistic to summarise observational data, Gallon is usually credited with being the first to consider its sampling distribution. At Gallon’s request, in 1879 McAlister undertook a pioneering mathematical study, which eventually led to the modern large-sample theory. However, some sixty years elapsed before much attention was paid to small samples from particular parent distributions. Since about 1960, new techniques have made it possible to derive exact sampling distributions for a much wider class of parent distributions. Some work has been done on producing approximate general relationships between the moments of the parent distribution and those of the sample geometric mean but they are of very limited value for small samples and even now it is difficult to find any general description of how the distribution from which a sample is drawn will affect the distribution of its geometric mean and how this will vary with sample size.