diff --git a/__init__.py b/__init__.py
index c35992a2..da197aa6 100644
--- a/__init__.py
+++ b/__init__.py
@@ -16,6 +16,9 @@ from .Qt import QtGui
 #if QtGui.QApplication.instance() is None:
     #app = QtGui.QApplication([])
 
+import numpy  ## pyqtgraph requires numpy
+              ## (import here to avoid massive error dump later on if numpy is not available)
+
 import os, sys
 
 ## check python version