Jacoby, Eduard Georg.

Jacoby, Eduard Georg (Peter), b. 1904, d. 1978.

E.G. Jacoby (known as 'Peter') took a doctorate in law from the Christian-Albrechts Universitat at Kiel, studying law, economics, politics, sociology and statistics. He was a research assistant to the German sociologist Ferdinand Toennies for a year before joining the Prussian civil service, from which he was dismissed by the Nazis. He came to New Zealand in 1938 and was an accountant with the New Zealand Educational Institute during the war years, becoming the first departmental Research Officer in the Department of Education after the war.

Following his retirement in about 1969 he devoted his energy to his research on 1) the career of Toennies, and 2) the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes.

His principal private research interests were the social theories of Toennies and the philosophy of Hobbes. He published significant contributions in both fields, as well as articles on educational sociology and statistics. Since Jacoby edited several collections of the work and correspondence of Toennies, his papers include an extensive collection of the works of Toennies and photocopies of most of the Toennies correspondence, as well as copies of many documents relating to Hobbes.

There are extensive notes on a number of books, both on social theory and on Hobbes and 17th century philosophy, and a large collection of the publications of Toennies.