Johann Nepomuk of Metzburg

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Johann Nepomuk Metzburg Senior

Johann Nepomuk von Metzburg (born November 7, 1780 in Dresden , † June 4, 1839 in Vienna ) was an Austrian civil servant who made a name for himself in developing and promoting Austrian state statistics.

Life

Johann Nepomuk Freiherr von Metzburg was a son of the diplomat Franz Leopold von Metzburg from the marriage with Marie von Raab and was born in Dresden, where his father was ambassador at the court of Electoral Saxony. He grew up in his native Dresden, partly with relatives in Bucharest , Jassy , Chernivtsi and Vienna , where, at the age of nine, after the early death of his father, he came under the care of his uncle, the mathematician Georg Ignaz von Metzburg .

After his death he came to the Theresian Knight Academy and entered the civil service after completing his law degree at the University of Vienna . In 1802 he was State Offizial, 1804 Gubernialsekretär in Lemberg , 1806 Vice District Chief in Krakow , 1808 Gubernialrat in Lviv and soon Kreishauptmann in Zhovkva , just north of Lviv. In the war year 1813 he accompanied the army of Prince Schwarzenberg as Austrian provincial commissioner and after the peace treaty in 1815 became an assessor of the central organizing court commission established for the Italian provinces in Vienna and in the same year he was a councilor . With the establishment of the Lombardy-Venetian kingdom and the dissolution of the court commission, he was transferred to the kk united court chancellery, where he worked for 14 years until he was appointed vice-president of the kk general accounting department headed by Anton von Baldacci in 1828 . In 1836 he was appointed president of a newly formed army audit commission, but remained in charge of official statistics until his death.

The newly established statistical office of the General Accounting Directorate had the task of collecting and merging statistical data from the entire German Empire from the records of the court and the 15 provincial accounts. The aim of the undertaking, which was initially very difficult - the office had only a handful of employees under Metzburg's direction - was to publish a set of statistical tables covering the entire monarchy. The project was approved by the emperor, but was largely kept secret from the start. The text was written directly on stone and 100 copies were made lithographically . It was only accessible to selected higher administrative authorities and only with restrictions. The red leather-bound financial and military surveys were restricted to selected government officials. The accompanying handbook of Austrian statistics , published by Metzburg in 1830/31, comprising 125 maps and tables, was not yet allowed to print the planned additions to many tables. It was not until 1841 that the tables were allowed to be freely published in print.

After Metzburg's death in 1839, his “statistical office” was converted into an independent authority in 1840 under the name kk “Directorate of administrative statistics”, the management of which was transferred in 1841 to Karl von Czoernig .

Baron Metzburg can be seen as the founder of official statistics in the imperial state of Austria. His son Johann von Metzburg also entered the political civil service career, became councilor and vice-president of the Moravian Lieutenancy.

Works

  • Handbook of Austrian Statistics, 2 volumes, 1831;
  • Attempt to depict the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in tablets, 1829 ff.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Metzburg, Johann Nepomuk von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian civil servant
DATE OF BIRTH November 7, 1780
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH June 4, 1839
Place of death Vienna