John Hooper (26 January 1878 – 29 December 1930) was an Irish statistician who served as the first director of statistics for the

Irish Free State The Irish Free State (6 December 192229 December 1937), also known by its Irish-language, Irish name ( , ), was a State (polity), state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-ye ...

, starting in 1923.

Biography

John Hooper was born at 1 Anglesea Place,

Cork city Cork ( ; from , meaning 'marsh') is the second-largest city in Republic of Ireland, Ireland, the county town of County Cork, the largest city in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and the List of settlements on the island of Ireland ...

, son of politician and journalist John Hooper (1846–1897) and his wife Mary Jane Buckley, and went to school at the Christian Brothers in Cork and the

O'Connell School The O’Connell School is a secondary and primary school for boys located on North Richmond Street in Dublin, Ireland. The school, named in honour of the leader of Catholic Emancipation, Daniel O’Connell, has the distinction of being the olde ...

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

. In 1898, he got a BA (with first class honours) in mathematics from the

Royal University of Ireland The Royal University of Ireland was a university in Ireland that existed from 1879 to 1909. It was founded in accordance with the University Education (Ireland) Act 1879 as an examining and degree-awarding university based on the model of the ...

in Dublin. He joined the civil service, and worked for a while at the Office of the

Postmaster-General A Postmaster General, in Anglosphere countries, is the chief executive officer of the postal service of that country, a ministerial office responsible for overseeing all other postmasters. History The practice of having a government officia ...

in London.United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs: Statistics Division
John Hooper BA (1923–1930) In 1902, he returned to Dublin and joined the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction of Ireland (DATII), specifically the Statistics and Intelligence Branch. By 1917, he had risen to the rank of superintendent of this branch, and in 1920 he presented two papers at the inaugural Conference of British Empire Statisticians in London. A few years later, the provisional government of the Free State combined DATII and the Department of the Ministry of Labour to form the new Department of Industry and Commerce. Thus, in 1923, Hooper became the first Director of Statistics in the country by being appointed head of the Statistics Branch of this new department.
A History of Irish Economic Thought
' edited by Thomas Boylan, Renee Prendergast, and John Turner; Taylor & Francis (October 2014), p. 250 In this role, he led the country's statistical initiatives in its early years, but he died of pneumonia in 1930 at the age of 52.

Honors and awards

Just before he died in 1930 he was elected as a member of the prestigious

International Statistical Institute The International Statistical Institute (ISI) is a professional association of statisticians. At a meeting of the Jubilee Meeting of the Royal Statistical Society, statisticians met and formed the agreed statues of the International Statistical ...

(ISI). There had been plans for him to receive an honorary Doctor of Economical Science from the

National University of Ireland The National University of Ireland (NUI) () is a federal university system of ''constituent universities'' (previously called '' constituent colleges'') and ''recognised colleges'' set up under the Irish Universities Act 1908, and signifi ...

in recognition of his leadership and service. A medal for school children is awarded each year in his honour by the Central Statistics Office in Ireland, based on a poster competition.Central Statistics Office of Ireland: International Statistical Literacy Poster : John Hooper
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hooper, John 20th-century Irish mathematicians Irish statisticians Scientists from Cork (city) People educated at O'Connell School 1878 births 1930 deaths