Sir Arthur John Boreham, KCB (30 July 1925 – 8 June 1994) was a British government statistician and the director of what was the Central Statistical Office of the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

from 1978 to 1985. He was knighted in 1980.

Background

The son of Frederick Boreham,

Archdeacon of Cornwall The Archdeacon of Cornwall is a senior cleric in the Church of England Diocese of Truro and one of two archdeacons in the diocese. History and composition The archdeaconry of Cornwall was created in the Diocese of Exeter in the late 11th centu ...

from 1949 to 1965, Sir John Boreham was educated at

Marlborough College Marlborough College is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school (English private boarding school) for pupils aged 13 to 18 in Marlborough, Wiltshire, England. It was founded as Marlborough School in 1843 by the Dean of Manchester, George ...

and

Trinity College, Oxford Trinity College (full name: The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the University of Oxford, of the foundation of Sir Thomas Pope (Knight)) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in E ...

, where he studied for a

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

politics Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

and

economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

degree with statistics as an optional subject.

Career

After completing his degree, Sir John Boreham had a varied and successful career in the

Government Statistical Service The Government Statistical Service (GSS) is the community of all civil servants in the United Kingdom who work in the collection, production and communication of official statistics. It includes not only statisticians, but also economists, socia ...

(GSS). He joined the Agriculture Economic Research Institute in Oxford and shortly afterward in 1950, joined the statistics division of the Ministry of Food as a higher executive officer. In 1951, he joined the Ministry of Agriculture as an assistant statistician and then in 1955, he moved to the

General Register Office General Register Office or General Registry Office (GRO) is the name given to the civil registry in the United Kingdom, many other Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth nations and Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The GRO is the government agency r ...

. He moved to the Central Statistical Office in 1958 and returned to the General Register Office on promotion to chief statistician in 1963. Between 1967 and 1971, he was director of economics and statistics at the

Ministry of Technology The Ministry of Technology was a department of the government of the United Kingdom, sometimes abbreviated as "MinTech". The Ministry of Technology was established by the incoming government of Harold Wilson in October 1964 as part of Wilson's am ...

. In 1972, he moved from the Ministry of Technology to the Central Statistical Office as an assistant director. A year later, he was promoted to deputy director. He became director of the Central Statistical Office and head of the Government Statistical Service on 1 August 1978.

Director of the Central Statistical Office

A key event during the tenure of Sir John Boreham as director of the Central Statistical Office was the Rayner Review of the Central Statistical Office and the Government Statistical Service, which was an early part of a policy of a newly elected government to reduce the size of the

Civil Service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...

. As a result of this review, the budget of the Central Statistical Office was cut by 33% and manpower by 25%. By streamlining and compressing the work of the office, Boreham implemented most of the recommendations of the Rayner Review by mid-1981 while still providing the same service to government. After 35 years in the Government Statistical Service, he retired on 31 July 1985.

International roles

One of the duties of the director of the Central Statistical Office was to attend the twice-yearly Conference of Directors General of the National Statistical Offices of the member countries of the

European Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisbo ...

. One meeting each year was held in

Luxembourg Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...

and the other was hosted in turn by the member countries. The

hosted the Conference at

Leeds Castle Leeds Castle is a castle in Kent, England, southeast of Maidstone. It is built on islands in a lake formed by the River Len to the east of the village of Leeds and is a historic Grade I listed estate. A castle has existed on the site s ...

in spring 1983. Boreham was also elected to serve as the chairman of the Conference of European Statisticians, one of the five regional commissions of the United Nations, in 1984 and 1985.

Trusteeship

He was a trustee of the National Centre for Social Research(NatCen) from 1984 to his death in 1994.

Legacy

The Sir John Boreham Archive is housed at the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

. The papers can be accessed through the British Library catalogue.Sir John Boreham and Family Archive
archives and manuscripts catalogue, the British Library. Retrieved 15 May 2020

Notes

References

* Ward, R. & Doggett, ''Keeping Score: The First Fifty Years of the Central Statistical Office'', London:

HMSO The Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) is the body responsible for the operation of His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) and of other public information services of the United Kingdom. The OPSI is part of the National Archives of the U ...

Bibliography

*Erritt, J. "Obituary: Sir John Boreham, KCB, 1925–94." ''

Journal of the Royal Statistical Society The ''Journal of the Royal Statistical Society'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of statistics. It comprises three series and is published by Oxford University Press for the Royal Statistical Society. History The Statistical Society of ...

''. Series A (Statistics in Society), Vol. 158, No. 1 (1995), pp. 182–184. *Hoinville, G & Smith T. M. F. "The Rayner Review of Government Statistical Services." ''Journal of the Royal Statistical Society''. Series A (General), Vol. 145, No. 2 (1982), pp. 195–207.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Boreham, John 1925 births 1994 deaths People educated at Marlborough College Alumni of Trinity College, Oxford Civil servants in the Ministry of Food Civil servants in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Civil servants in the General Register Office Civil servants in the Ministry of Technology Directors of the Central Statistical Office (United Kingdom) British statisticians Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath