Gottfried Achenwall (20 October 1719 – 1 May 1772) was a German philosopher and statistician. He is counted among the inventors of statistics. He was born in Elbing (Elbląg [1] [2]) in the Polish province of Royal Prussia. [3] Beginning in 1738 he studied in the Jena, Halle, again Jena and Leipzig. In the years 1743 to 1746 he worked as controller in Dresden. He was awarded his master's degree in 1746 by the philosophical faculty of Leipzig and went in the following to Marburg to work as assistant professor lecturing history, statistics, natural and international law. In 1748 he was called to Göttingen to become extraordinary professor of philosophy, in 1753 extraordinary professor of law and regular professor of philosophy. In 1761 professor of natural law and politics, in 1762 doctor of both laws. In 1765, Achenwall became court counsellor of the Royal British and the Electoral court of Hanover. With financial support from King George III he travelled to Switzerland and France in 1751 and to Holland and England in 1759.