Robert Giffen was a Scottish economist and statistician who lived from 1837-1910. He worked for the Stirling Journal in London and then later went on to assist Walter Bagehot in editing The Economist. His reputation rests mostly on his work in "official statistics", Giffen was largely responsible for the first attempts to collect figures relating to the wages of manual laborers and for setting up the Bureau of Labour Statistics. While he was respected in both fields of theoretical economics and applied economics, he will always be clearly remembered for his "Paradox" mentioned in Book 3 of Marshall's Principles. The exception to the general rule that the law of demand was held to operate on one staple commodity. If the price of this commodity falls, the real income increases for the community so it can afford to buy foodstuffs and therefore cut its consumption of the "Giffen Good". The reverse will happen if there is a price rise, causing the quantity demanded increasing as prices rise and falling as prices fall.
He was a laissez-faire economist, he was against the protectionist and socialist schools domestically and internationally, but he was willing to accept it if it gave a political advantage.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3045000464.html
Note that the experience which generated the Giffen Paradox happened during the Irish Potato Famine. The story is the people became so poor and potatoes so scarce that all they could afford to do was eat potatoes. Actually many died. Many others left Ireland and of those quite a few came to the United States.
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