William Playfair

For other people with the same name, see William Playfair (disambiguation).

William Playfair
Born(1759-09-22)September 22, 1759
Benvie, Forfarshire, Scotland
Died11 February 1823(1823-02-11) (aged 63)
London, England
Known forinventor of statistical graphs, writer on political economy, various reported clandestine activities during the French Revolution
FamilyJohn Playfair (brother)
James Playfair (brother)
William Henry Playfair (nephew)


William Playfair (22 September 1759 – 11 February 1823) was a Scottish engineer and political economist. The founder of graphical methods of statistics,[1] Playfair invented several types of diagrams: in 1786 he introduced the line, area and bar chart of economic data, and in 1801 he published what were likely the first pie chart and circle graph, used to show part-whole relations.[2] Playfair has been reported[3] to have been a secret agent for the British Government, although this is a subject of controversy.[4][5]

  1. ^ Paul J. FitzPatrick (1960). "Leading British Statisticians of the Nineteenth Century". In: Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 55, No. 289 (Mar. 1960), pp. 38–70.
  2. ^ Michael Friendly (2008). "Milestones in the history of thematic cartography, statistical graphics, and data visualization" Archived 26 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine. pp 13–14. Retrieved 7 July 2008.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Bellhouse, David R. (July 2023). The Flawed Genius of William Playfair. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9781487545048.
  5. ^ Royal Statistical Society Lecture, "The Flawed Genius of William Playfair" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFrr7NBwuXU