Person
Knibbs, George Handley (1858 - 1929)
Kt
- Born
- 13 June 1858
Redfern, New South Wales, Australia - Died
- 30 March 1929
Camberwell, Victoria, Australia - Occupation
- Statistician
Summary
Sir George Knibbs was the first Commonwealth Statistician (1906-1921) and a Director of the Commonwealth Institute of Science and Industry (1921-1926). He was responsible for the production of the Commonwealth Year Book, first published in 1908, and had an international reputation for his work in vital statistics. With J. W. Turner, he was appointed Commissioner for a 1902 Royal Commission into New South Wales Education.
Details
He is memorialised by the naming of Knibbs Street, Turner, Australian Capital Territory.
Chronology
- 1879 - 1889
- Career position - Licensed Surveyor, Trigonometrical and General Survey Department of New South Wales
- 1881
- Career position - President, Royal Society of New South Wales
- 1888 -
- Career event - Original [founding] member, Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science
- 1889 - 1905
- Career position - Lecturer in Geodesy, Astronomy and Hydraulics, University of Sydney
- 1892
- Career position - President, Institution of Surveyors
- 1893
- Career position - President, Institution of Surveyors
- 1900
- Career position - President, Institution of Surveyors
- 1902
- Career position - Co-Commissioner of the Royal Commission into New South Wales Education
- 1903 - 1905
- Career position - President, Society of Child Study in New South Wales
- 1905 - 1906
- Career position - Director of Technical Education in New South Wales
- 1906 - 1921
- Career position - Commonwealth Statistician
- 1909
- Career position - President, Section G1 (Social and Statistical Science), Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science
- 1911
- Award - Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG)
- 1914
- Career position - Local Secretary for Melbourne, Section F (Economic Science and Statistics), British Association for the Advancement of Science Meeting
- 1921 -
- Career position - Foundation Councillor (Economics and Statistics), Australian National Research Council
- 1921 - 1923
- Career position - President, Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science
- 1921 - 1926
- Career position - Director, Commonwealth Institute of Science and Industry
- 1922 -
- Career position - Chairman, Commonwealth Engineering Standards Association
- 1923
- Award - Knight Bachelor (Kt)
Related entries
Published resources
Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions
- Collins, David, Chemistry in 19th Australia - Select Bibliography, An exhibition of the Encyclopedia circa 2005 with assistance from Ailie Smith and Gavan McCarthy., eScholarship Research Centre (original publisher), Melbourne, 2009, https://eoas.info/exhibitions/ciab/ciab_ALL.html. Details
Book Sections
- Bambrick, Susan, 'Knibbs, Sir George Handley (1858-1929)' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 9: 1891 - 1939 Gil-Las, Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle, eds (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1983), pp. 620-621. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A090623b.htm. Details
- Knibbs, G. H., 'The history and development of the statistical system of Australia' in The history of statistics, their development and progress in many countries, Koren, J., ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1918), pp. 55-81. Details
Edited Books
- Knibbs, G. H. ed., Federal handbook prepared in connection with the eighty-fourth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held in Australia August 1914 (Melbourne: Government Printer, 1914), 598 pp. Details
Journal Articles
- Anon, 'Obituary: Sir George Knibbs', Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 90 (372-3) (1930). Details
- Ashton, R. L., 'George Handley Knibbs, 1858-1929', Australian Journal of Science, 21 (1959), 170-173. Details
- Bambrick, Susan, 'First Commonwealth Statistician: Sir George Knibbs', Journal and Proceedings of The Royal Society of New South Wales, 102 (2) (1969), 127-135. Details
- Heyde, C. C., 'Official statistics in the late colonial period leading on to the work of the first Commonwealth Statistician, G. H. Knibbs', Australian Journal of Statistics, 30 (B) (1988), 23-43. Details
- Knibbs, G.H., 'Note on Recent Determinations of the Viscosity of Water by the Efflux Method', Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 30 (1896), 186-193. Details
- Speed, T. P., 'The role of statisticians in CSIRO: past, present and future', Australian Journal of Statistics, 30 (B) (1988), 15-34. Details
- Wickens, C. H., 'Sir George Knibbs', Economic Record, 5 (1929), 334-5. Details
Reports
- Knibbs, George H., Institute of Science and Industry, Second Annual Report of the Director: for the period 1st July, 1922 to the 31st December, 1923 (Melbourne: Commonwealth Government Printer, ). https://csiropedia.csiro.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Institute-of-Science-and-Industry-Second-Annual-Report-1922-to-1923.pdf. Details
- Knibbs, George H., Institute of Science and Industry, First Annual Report of the Director: for the period from the date of his appointment (18th March, 1921) to the 30th June, 1922 (Melbourne: Commonwealth Government Printer, 1922). https://csiropedia.csiro.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Institute-of-Science-and-Industry-First-Annual-Report-1921-to-1922.pdf. Details
Resources
- VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/380784. Details
- VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/161431246. Details
- Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q5540209. Details
- 'Knibbs, George (1858-1929)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-1289874. Details
Resource Sections
- 'Knibbs, George Handley', in Physics in Australia to 1945, R.W. Home, with the assistance of Paula J. Needham, Australian Science Archives Project, June 1995, http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/physics/P001075p.htm. Details
See also
- Federation and Meteorology, 2001, http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/fam/index_k.html. Details
- Serle, Percival, Dictionary of Australian biography (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1949). Details
- Sherratt, Tim, 'CSIRO' in Oxford Companion to Australian History, Graeme Davison; John Hirst; Stuart Macintyre, ed. (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 164-165. http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/pubs/articles/tps/csiro_history.htm. Details
McCarthy, G.J.
Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 23 February 2023
- Foundation Supporter - Committee to Review Australian Studies in Tertiary Education