Graunt
Name: John Graunt
Achievements: First statistical collection and analysis
Born: April 24, 1620; London, England
Died: April 18, 1674; London, England (Aged 54)
Field & Discipline: Statistics
Language: English
Father: Henry Graunt
Mother: Mary Graunt
Siblings: Unknown
Spouse: Mary Scott
Children: 1 son; 3 daughters
Education: Unknown
Major Work:
"Natural and Political Observation Made upon the Bills of Mortality" (1662)
Life & Times:
Graunt became a successful draper and respected figure in the London business community. He had many friends among a group of men who were interested in improving society, in the new scientific studies and inventions, and who later formed the Royal Society.
Through these contacts, Graunt was able to get his friend [a pal of] Petty* a job as professor of music at Gresham College in 1650. Brought up as a Puritan, Graunt used to take notes of sermons in his own form of shorthand and he also studied the death records which had been kept in London parishes since 1532. He noticed that certain types of information cropped up regularly in the death records and he began to collate his findings.
In 1662 he published "Natural and Political Observation Made upon the Bills of Mortality". He classified death rates by cause of death, and included overpopulation as one of the causes. Among his findings were that the death rate in towns was greater than in the countryside; and that although there was a higher death rate for males, the sexes were divided evenly because more males than females were born.
Graunt's most valuable innovation was his life table, which could be used to predict age of death. He calculated the percentage of people that would live up to the age of six, and those who would live up to the age of seventy-six, and gave their life expectancy year by year.
This work provided Petty with the information he needed for his work on economics and demography and was a forerunner of the work on probability brought out by [anticipated] Blaise Pascal* in France a few years later.
Graunt was made a founder member of [member of] the Royal Society* on the recommendation of the king ([promoted by] Charles II*).
Graunt's finances were badly affected by the Great Fire of 1666 and around the same time he became a Roman Catholic. Catholics were regarded with great suspicion at that time in England and Graunt's conversion made him vulnerable to unfounded charges that as a trustee of the new River Company he was involved in water shortages at the time of the Great Fire (it was only later Graunt that became involved with the company). His financial position remained dire and despite promises of help from Petty, Graunt was still living in reduced circumstances when he died.
Assessment: Graunt's work provided the basis for the pioneering science of demography.
Oneliner: John Graunt, first statistician
Bibliography:
- Aubrey, John, Brief Lives, Clarendon Press, Oxford, Secker and Warburg, London, 1960.
- Dictionary of National Biography.
- Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
- Encyclopedia Britannica.