Joseph Fletcher (1813 – 1852) was an English statistical writer and barrister. He worked also on official committees and as a schools inspector.

Education

Fletcher trained as a barrister, entering the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn ...

in 1838 and being called to the bar in 1841.

Career

Fletcher was the secretary of the

Royal Commission on Hand-Loom Weavers The Royal Commission on Hand-Loom Weavers was an enquiry in the United Kingdom into unemployment and poverty in the textile industry. It was set up in 1837, and issued a number of reports, to 1841. Background The number of handloom weavers in the ...

. Starting in 1844, he worked as a

schools inspector The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is a non-ministerial department of His Majesty's government, reporting to Parliament. Ofsted is responsible for inspecting a range of educational institutions, includ ...

. From a young age, Fletcher wrote reports on social and health issues. These included one on child employment in lead mines, for the Children's Employment Commission 1842. His commission reports influenced legislation. The findings of the children's employment commission in particular laid the basis for parliamentary control. As a schools inspector he wrote also on education. In 1850 Fletcher published a ''Summary of the Moral Statistics of England and Wales''; and in the following year a work on ''Education: National, Voluntary, and Free''. He was unconvinced of the moral superiority of communities that were relatively sparsely developed, such as small towns and farming areas, presaging views later held by

Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, psychologist, biologist, anthropologist, and sociologist famous for his hypothesis of social Darwinism. Spencer originated the expression " survival of the fi ...

and

Norbert Elias Norbert Elias (; 22 June 1897 – 1 August 1990) was a German sociologist who later became a British citizen. He is especially famous for his theory of civilizing/decivilizing processes. Biography Elias was born on 22 June 1897 in Bresla ...

.Zohreh Bayatrizi, ''Mapping character types onto space: the urban–rural distinction in early statistical writings'', History of the Human Sciences 24(2) 28–47
DOI: 10.1177/0952695111399344 He studied foreign educational systems, and issued (1851–2) two treatises on ''The Farm School of the Continent, and its Applicability to the Preventive and Reformatory Education of Pauper and Criminal Children in England and Wales''. Fletcher was one of the honorary secretaries of the Statistical Society of London; and also editor of the '' Statistical Journal''. He was member of the council of the

British Association The British Science Association (BSA) is a charity and learned society founded in 1831 to aid in the promotion and development of science. Until 2009 it was known as the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA). The current Chie ...

, and acted as secretary to its statistical section.

Death

Fletcher died at Chirk,

Denbighshire Denbighshire ( ; cy, Sir Ddinbych; ) is a county in the north-east of Wales. Its borders differ from the historic county of the same name. This part of Wales contains the country's oldest known evidence of habitation – Pontnewydd (Bontnewy ...

on 11 August 1852. He was buried in the graveyard of

All Hallows' Church, Tottenham All Hallows is an Anglican church in Tottenham, North London. It is one of the oldest buildings in the London Borough of Haringey, having been built as All Saints' Church in the 12th century, then re-dedicated as All Hallows in the 15th century ...

Notes

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Fletcher, Joseph 1813 births 1852 deaths English statisticians English barristers 19th-century English lawyers