James Whitelaw BA, MRIA (1749 – 4 February 1813) was an Irish historian, writer, statistician, Anglican priest and philanthropist.
He carried out a great deal of work on behalf of the poor, including establishing the Erasmus Smith Free School on the Coombe and other institutions.
In 1798 he carried out a census of the city of Dublin (a difficult undertaking at the time on account of the 1798 Rising).
[1] Epidemic diseases were then frequent in Dublin, but, undeterred by the fear of infection, he personally inspected nearly every house in the city and questioned nearly every inhabitant.
[2] The many detailed statistics which he accumulated were stored in the city archives in Dublin Castle, which were among those destroyed in the Four Courts during the Irish Civil War in 1922.