Abstract
This chapter gives an overview of Herbert Somerton Foxwell’s contribution to economics. First, it provides some biographical notes on his academic and book-collecting activities, with an emphasis on his assembling of what became known as the Goldsmiths’ Library. It also reviews Foxwell’s association with the historicist movement and his opposition to classical economics. Three sections then provide an assessment of Foxwell’s intellectual contributions to the economics of banking, industrial fluctuations, and the history of economic thought. The chapter ends with some final remarks on the strengths and limitations of Foxwell’s participation in the economic controversies of his time.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Maynard Keynes described Foxwell’s lecturing style as being always directed to practical problems from a realistic perspective: ‘But he held that the reasoning must be applied, if it is to be fruitful, to a wide range of facts furnished by historical and contemporary experience, and not to simplified and artificial hypotheses’ (Keynes 1936: 592).
- 2.
The British Economic Association’s plea appeared in the 25 June 1901 issue of The Times in quite convincing terms: ‘No such library of economic literature has ever been formed before, and it is doubtful whether any future collector, however learned, leisured and wealthy, will be able to rival it’ (The Times 1901: 8).
- 3.
Alternatively, as argued by Cliffe Leslie in his Essays in Political Economy: ‘The main questions respecting the influence alike of the “desire of wealth” and of expenditure and consumption are: To what kinds of wealth, what modes of acquisition, and what actual uses do they lead in different states of society, and under different institutions, and other surrounding conditions? To what laws of social evolution are they subject in the foregoing respects? On these points we learn nothing from abstract political economy’ (Leslie 1888: 171).
- 4.
When reviewing and reporting on Pigou’s successful King’s College Fellowship thesis (Pigou 1901), which was a Marshallian economic history of relative agricultural prices in the second half of the nineteenth century, Foxwell reported that Pigou was ‘too much of a Ricardian; too much enamoured of his technical apparatus’ (Foxwell quoted in McLure 2013: 275).
- 5.
After the episode, Foxwell acquired a distaste for Pigou which lasted all the way through the First World War and beyond. During Pigou’s trials for exemption from military service, Foxwell, in a less-than-noble attitude, offered himself to fill Pigou’s place at Cambridge in case the exemption that had been granted at the first trial was reversed (Aslanbeigui 1992). Also, Pigou’s application for membership of the British Academy was denied until 1927 due, to a great extent, to Foxwell’s opposition (Winch 2014).
- 6.
Marshall was not only content to express his sympathy for the historicist movement but also for the evolutionary approach to economics that draws upon biological analogy (Hodgson 2005).
- 7.
Or still, when commenting on Mr George Goschen’s proposals to increase the Bank of England’s gold holdings: ‘The most conclusive proof that our present reserve is inadequate is to be found in the nervous state of the money market in ordinary times, and in the fact that comparatively small withdrawals of gold, of a kind to which the London market is constantly liable, will produce unforeseen and mischievous advances in the current rate of discount’ (Foxwell 1892: 142).
- 8.
As expressed by Ricardo: ‘What security has the public creditor that the interest on the public debt, which is now paid in a medium depreciated fifteen per cent, may not hereafter be paid in one degraded fifty per cent?’ (Ricardo 1809 [2005]: 96). The same position, of stressing the need for restraint by the Bank in order to keep the exchanges stable, would be reinforced in 1810 by the report of the Bullion Committee (Fetter 1965: 39–43, 49–54).
- 9.
See Foxwell’s observations on the history of Barclays Bank for a conspicuous case of a successful banking amalgamation (Foxwell 1908b).
- 10.
The once curator of the Kress Library, Ruth Rogers, wrote the following about this second collection put together by Foxwell: ‘The major categories of the collection are political economy, commerce, finance, taxation, money and banking, trades and manufactures, transportation, labor, socialism, and the economic aspects of agriculture. The published materials span the years from 1474 to 1850 and includes works in all Western European languages’ (Rogers 1986: 282).
- 11.
Modern studies, though, have shown that much of the nineteenth-century literature on socialism was influenced by the works of Smith (Thompson 2002: 82–110) and Owen (Claeys 1987: 130–165). Foxwell here does not take into account how difficult it was, even for the most loyal Ricardian, to master the complex intricacies of Ricardo’s labour theory of value (see Peach 2009: 145–240), while Smith’s and Owen’s theories were distinctly simpler than Ricardo’s and, therefore, easier to assimilate and diffuse.
References
Selected Writings of Herbert Somerton Foxwell
Foxwell, H.S. (1884). ‘Introduction’. In H.S. Foxwell (ed.) Investigations in Currency and Finance, by W.S. Jevons. London: Macmillan: xix-xliv.
Foxwell, H.S. (1886). Irregularity of Employment and Fluctuations of Prices. Edinburgh: Co-operative Printing Company Limited.
Foxwell, H.S. (1887). ‘The Economic Movement in England’. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2(1): 84–103.
Foxwell, H.S. (1888) [1919]. ‘The Growth of Monopoly, and its Bearing on the Functions of the State’. Appendix I in Papers on Current Finance. London: Macmillan: 263–277.
Foxwell, H.S. (1892). ‘Mr. Goschen’s Currency Proposals’. Economic Journal, 2(5): 139–156.
Foxwell, H.S. (1895). A Criticism of Lord Farrer on the Monetary Standard. London: Effingham Wilson & Co.
Foxwell, H.S. (1896). ‘Review of Select Tracts and Documents Illustrative of British Monetary History, 1626–1730 (by various authors)’. Economic Journal, 6(22): 226–233.
Foxwell, H.S. (1899). ‘Introduction’. In A. Menger, The Right to the Whole Produce of Labour. Translated by M.E. Tanner. London: Macmillan: v–cx.
Foxwell, H.S. (1908a). ‘The Goldsmiths’ Company’s Library of Economic Literature’. In H. Higgs (ed.) Palgrave’s Dictionary of Political Economy. Three volumes. London: Macmillan: 720–722.
Foxwell, H.S. (1908b). ‘Review of A History of Barclays Bank, compiled by P.W. Matthews and edited by A.W. Tuke’. Economic Journal, 37(147): 411–417.
Foxwell, H.S. (1909). ‘Preface’. In A.M. Andréades, History of the Bank of England. Translated by C. Meredith. London: P.S. King & Son: vii–xxvi.
Foxwell, H.S. (1909) [1919]. ‘The Banking Reserve’. Paper V in Papers on Current Finance. London: Macmillan: 135–170.
Foxwell, H.S. (1913). ‘Review of Indian Currency and Finance, by J.M. Keynes’. Economic Journal, 23(92): 561–572.
Foxwell, H.S. (1917) [1919a]. ‘The Financing of Industry and Trade’. Paper IV in Papers on Current Finance. London: Macmillan: 97–134.
Foxwell, H.S. (1917) [1919b]. ‘The Nature of the Industrial Struggle’. Paper III in Papers on Current Finance. London: Macmillan: 69–96.
Foxwell, H.S. (1919). ‘Obituary: Archdeacon Cunningham’. Economic Journal, 29(115): 382–390.
Other References
Aslanbeigui, N. (1992). ‘Foxwell’s Aims and Pigou’s Military Service: A Malicious Episode?’. Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 14(1): 96–109.
Bonar, J. (1936). ‘H.S. Foxwell’. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 99(4): 837–841.
Bowley, A.L. and R.D. Freeman (2004). ‘Foxwell, Herbert Somerton (1849–1936)’. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press. Available at: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/33239.
Claeys, G. (1987). Machinery, Money and the Millennium: From Moral Economy to Socialism, 1815–1860. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Coase, R.H. (1972). ‘The Appointment of Pigou as Marshall’s Successor’. Journal of Law and Economics, 15(2): 473–485.
Coats, A.W. (1954). ‘The Historic Reaction in English Political Economy 1870–1890’. Economica, New Series, 21(82): 143–153.
Coats, A.W. (1972). ‘The Appointment of Pigou as Marshall’s Successor: Comment’. Journal of Law and Economics, 15(2): 487–495.
Cunningham, W. (1878). ‘Political Economy as a Moral Science’. Mind, 3(11): 369–383.
Cunningham, W. (1892). ‘The Perversion of Economic History’. Economic Journal, 2(7): 491–506.
Fetter, F.W. (1965). Development of British Monetary Orthodoxy 1797–1875. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Groenewegen, P.D. (1995). A Soaring Eagle: Alfred Marshall 1842–1924. Aldershot: Edward Elgar.
Hodgson, G.M. (2005). ‘Alfred Marshall Versus the Historical School?’. Journal of Economic Studies, 32(4): 331–348.
Hume, L.J. (1970). ‘The Gold Standard and Deflation: Issues and Attitudes in the 1920s’. Chapter 5 in S. Pollard (ed.) The Gold Standard and Employment Policies between the Wars. London: Methuen: 122–145.
Jevons, W.S. (1871). The Theory of Political Economy. Third edition. London: Macmillan.
Keynes, J.M. (1936). ‘Herbert Somerton Foxwell’. Economic Journal, 46(184): 589–614.
Keynes, J.N. (1897). The Scope and Method of Political Economy. Second edition. London: Macmillan.
Koot, G.M. (1977). ‘H.S. Foxwell and English Historical Economics’. Journal of Economic Issues, 11(3): 561–586.
Koot, G.M. (1987). ‘Foxwell, Herbert Somerton (1849–1936)’. In J. Eatwell, M. Milgate and P. Newman (eds) The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics. First edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan: 3,672–3,674.
Leslie, T.E.C. (1888). Essays in Political Economy. Second edition. London: Longmans, Green & Co.
McLure, M. (2013). ‘Assessments of A.C. Pigou’s Fellowship Theses’. History of Political Economy, 45(2): 255–285.
Mints, L.W. (1945). A History of Banking Theory in Great Britain and the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Moggridge, D.E. (1972). British Monetary Policy, 1924–1931: The Norman Conquest of $4.86. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nicholson, J.S. (1919). ‘Review of Papers on Current Finance, by H.S. Foxwell’. Economic Journal, 29(115): 317–323.
Peach, T. (2009). Interpreting Ricardo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pigou, A.C. (1901). The Causes and Effects of Changes in the Relative Values of Agricultural Produce in the United Kingdom during the Last Fifty Years. King’s College Fellowship Thesis, King’s College Archive Centre, Cambridge University: Coll. KCAC/4/11/1/Pigou.
Pigou, A.C. (1912). Wealth and Welfare. London: Macmillan.
Ricardo, D. (1809) [2005]. ‘The High Price of Bullion’. In P. Sraffa (ed.) The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Volume III, Pamphlets and Papers 1809–1811. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund: 47–127.
Rogers, R.R. (1986). ‘The Kress Library of Business and Economics’. Business History Review, 60(2): 281–288.
Schumpeter, J.A. (1963). History of Economic Analysis. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Shove, G.F. (1942). ‘The Place of Marshall’s Principles in the Development of Economic Theory’. Economic Journal, 52(208): 294–329.
The Times (1901). ‘Professor Foxwell’s Library of Economic Literature’. 25 June: 8.
The Times (1936). Professor Foxwell: The Bibliography of Economics. 4 August: 12.
Thompson, N.W. (2002). The People’s Science: The Popular Political Economy of Exploitation and Crisis 1816–1834. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Winch, D. (2014). ‘Keynes and the British Academy’. The Historical Journal, 57(3): 751–771.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Arthmar, R., McLure, M. (2017). Herbert Somerton Foxwell (1849–1936). In: Cord, R. (eds) The Palgrave Companion to Cambridge Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-41233-1_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-41233-1_17
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-41232-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-41233-1
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)