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 ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between ...

, starting in 1923.

Biography

John Hooper was born at 1 Anglesea Place,

Cork city Cork ( , from , meaning 'marsh') is the second largest city in Ireland and third largest city by population on the island of Ireland. It is located in the south-west of Ireland, in the province of Munster. Following an extension to the city's ...

, 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 in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

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

Royal University of Ireland The Royal University of Ireland was founded in accordance with the ''University Education (Ireland) Act 1879'' as an examining and degree-awarding university based on the model of the University of London. A Royal Charter was issued on 27 Apri ...

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. The practice of having a government official responsible ...

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 (ISI). There had been plans for him to receive an honorary Doctor of Economical Science from the National University of Ireland 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 Irish mathematicians Irish statisticians People from Cork (city) People educated at O'Connell School 1878 births 1930 deaths