Biometrika was established in 1901 by Francis Galton, Karl Pearson, and Raphael Weldon to promote the study of biometrics.

In the early days, the American biologists Charles Davenport and Raymond Pearl were nominally involved but they dropped out.

Other people who were deeply involved in the journal included William Palin Elderton, an associate of Pearson's who published several articles in the early days and in 1935 became chairman of the Biometrika Trust.

[3] In the first issue, the editors presented a statement of purpose: It is intended that Biometrika shall serve as a means not only of collecting or publishing under one title biological data of a kind not systematically collected or published elsewhere in any other periodical, but also of spreading a knowledge of such statistical theory as may be requisite for their scientific treatment.

Thus, of the five types of contents envisaged by its founders, only the second and to a lesser extent the third remain, largely shorn of their biological roots.