James Wilson (3 June 1805 – 11 August 1860) was a Scottish businessman, economist, and Liberal politician who founded ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...

'' weekly and the

Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China (informally The Chartered Bank) was a bank incorporated in London in 1853 by Scotsman James Wilson, under a Royal Charter from Queen Victoria.

, which merged with

Standard Bank Standard Bank Group Limited is a major South African bank and financial services group. It is Africa's biggest lender by assets. The company's corporate headquarters, Standard Bank Centre, is situated in Simmonds Street, Johannesburg. History ...

in 1969 to form

Standard Chartered Standard Chartered plc is a multinational bank with operations in consumer, corporate and institutional banking, and treasury services. Despite being headquartered in the United Kingdom, it does not conduct retail banking in the UK, and around 9 ...

.''James Wilson'' by Ruth Dudley Edwards in

Oxford DNB The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

He was the first Finance Member of the Viceroy's Executive Council from December 1859 until his death in August 1860. Sent there to put order into the chaos that followed the "

Sepoy Mutiny The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the for ...

" of 1857, he presented India's first budget, and was responsible for the government accounting system, Pay Office, and audit, apart from government paper currency, Indian Police, a Military Finance Commission, and a Civil Finance Commission.

Early life

Wilson was born in

Hawick Hawick ( ; sco, Haaick; gd, Hamhaig) is a town in the Scottish Borders council area and historic county of Roxburghshire in the east Southern Uplands of Scotland. It is south-west of Jedburgh and south-south-east of Selkirk. It is one ...

in the

Scottish Borders The Scottish Borders ( sco, the Mairches, 'the Marches'; gd, Crìochan na h-Alba) is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Midlothian, South Lanarkshire, West Lot ...

. His

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...

father William Wilson owned a hat manufactury, and his ancestors were local sheep farmers. He was the fourth of fifteen children, of whom ten reached adulthood. His mother died when James was young. A successful disciplined

autodidact Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning and self-teaching) is education without the guidance of masters (such as teachers and professors) or institutions (such as schools). Generally, autodidacts are individu ...

scholar from a Quaker family, he was destined to be a

schoolmaster The word schoolmaster, or simply master, refers to a male school teacher. This usage survives in British independent schools, both secondary and preparatory, and a few Indian boarding schools (such as The Doon School) that were modelled afte ...

but hated it so much that he "would rather to be the most menial servant in isfather's mill". After considering studying law with a view to becoming an

advocate An advocate is a professional in the field of law. Different countries' legal systems use the term with somewhat differing meanings. The broad equivalent in many English law–based jurisdictions could be a barrister or a solicitor. However ...

, a profession which would have meant abandoning his family religion, Wilson decided instead to learn business, and at the age of sixteen became an apprentice in a hat factory. Later, his father bought the business for him and his elder brother, William. When James Wilson was nineteen, the brothers left Scotland and migrated to London, with a gift of £2,000 each, .

Career

Business

The brothers established a manufacturing factory—Wilson, Irwin & Wilson—that they dissolved in 1831. Wilson continued in the same line of business with much success (his

net worth Net worth is the value of all the non-financial and financial assets owned by an individual or institution minus the value of all its outstanding liabilities. Since financial assets minus outstanding liabilities equal net financial assets, net ...

was £25,000 in 1837, . During the economic crisis of 1837, he lost most of his wealth when the price of

indigo Indigo is a deep color close to the color wheel blue (a primary color in the RGB color space), as well as to some variants of ultramarine, based on the ancient dye of the same name. The word "indigo" comes from the Latin word ''indicum'', ...

fell. By 1839, he had sold most of his property and avoided bankruptcy. However, in 1853 he founded the

, which later merged with the

to form

Standard Chartered Bank Standard Chartered plc is a multinational bank with operations in consumer, corporate and institutional banking, and treasury services. Despite being headquartered in the United Kingdom, it does not conduct retail banking in the UK, and around 9 ...

in 1969.

Journalism

Wilson was generally opposed to privileging the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Brit ...

, the

secret ballot The secret ballot, also known as the Australian ballot, is a voting method in which a voter's identity in an election or a referendum is anonymous. This forestalls attempts to influence the voter by intimidation, blackmailing, and potential vo ...

when it was proposed in 1853, and the

Corn Laws The Corn Laws were tariffs and other trade restrictions on imported food and corn enforced in the United Kingdom between 1815 and 1846. The word ''corn'' in British English denotes all cereal grains, including wheat, oats and barley. They wer ...

. He wrote a

pamphlet A pamphlet is an unbound book (that is, without a hard cover or binding). Pamphlets may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths, called a ''leaflet'' or it may consist of a ...

titled ''Influences of the Corn Laws, as affecting all classes of the community, and particularly the landed interests''. It slowly received positive feedback and Wilson's fame had grown. He then went on writing on currency, and especially ''The Revenue; or, What should the Chancellor do?''. He started to write for newspapers, including the ''

Manchester Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the G ...

''. In 1843 he established ''

'' as a newspaper to campaign for

free trade Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. It can also be understood as the free market idea applied to international trade. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold econ ...

, and acted as Chief editor and sole proprietor for sixteen years. His overarching goal to end vested interests in the Westminster parliament wherever these led to poverty or starvation, as the Corn Laws most notably had done. An article Wilson published in April 1848 in opposition to the Ten Hours Bill was criticised by

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

for misunderstanding profit and the working day. ''The Economist'' is still published today, now with a weekly circulation of over 1.6 million globally. Wilson was the most respected statistician of his times and saw economics as an optimistic and rational way of mediating socially sustainable futures drawing on the Scottish School of

Adam Smith Adam Smith (baptized 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the thinking of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as "The Father of Economics"——� ...

and the French "Entrepreneur" School of

Jean-Baptiste Say Jean-Baptiste Say (; 5 January 1767 – 15 November 1832) was a liberal French economist and businessman who argued in favor of competition, free trade and lifting restraints on business. He is best known for Say's law—also known as the law o ...

Politics

Wilson entered the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

as Liberal Member of Parliament for Westbury, Wiltshire, in 1847. Because of his economic experience, in 1848 prime minister

Lord John Russell John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, (18 August 1792 – 28 May 1878), known by his courtesy title Lord John Russell before 1861, was a British Whig and Liberal statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1852 and a ...

appointed Wilson as

Secretary of the Board of Control {{unreferenced, date=November 2010 The Secretary to the Board of Control was a British government office in the late 18th and early 19th century, supporting the President of the Board of Control, who was responsible for overseeing the British East I ...

, which supervised the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...

's control of

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

, a post he held until the government fell in 1852. He then served as

Financial Secretary to the Treasury The financial secretary to the Treasury is a mid-level ministerial post in His Majesty's Treasury. It is nominally the fifth most significant ministerial role within the Treasury after the first lord of the Treasury, the chancellor of the Excheq ...

between 1853 and 1858, firstly in

Lord Aberdeen George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, (28 January 178414 December 1860), styled Lord Haddo from 1791 to 1801, was a British statesman, diplomat and landowner, successively a Tory, Conservative and Peelite politician and specialist in ...

coalition government A coalition government is a form of government in which political parties cooperate to form a government. The usual reason for such an arrangement is that no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an election, an atypical outcome in ...

and secondly in Lord Palmerston's first administration. In 1857 he was returned to Parliament for Devonport. He again briefly held office under Palmerston as

Paymaster-General His Majesty's Paymaster General or HM Paymaster General is a ministerial position in the Cabinet Office of the United Kingdom. The incumbent Paymaster General is Jeremy Quin MP. History The post was created in 1836 by the merger of the posit ...

and

Vice-President of the Board of Trade The office of Vice-President of the Board of Trade is a junior ministerial position in the government of the United Kingdom at the Board of Trade. The office was created in 1786 but fell into abeyance in 1867. From 1848 onwards, the office was he ...

between June and August 1859 and was sworn of the

Privy Council A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a state, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the mo ...

the same year. In August 1859 Wilson resigned these offices and his seat in parliament to sit as the financial member of the

Council of India The Council of India was the name given at different times to two separate bodies associated with British rule in India. The original Council of India was established by the Charter Act of 1833 as a council of four formal advisors to the Governo ...

. He was sent by Queen Victoria to India to establish the tax structure, a new paper currency, and remodel India's finance system after the Rebellion of 1857. However, he was in office only a year before he died. In 1860 he refused to leave the stifling summer heat of

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, commer ...

, contracted

dysentery Dysentery (UK pronunciation: , US: ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complications ...

, and died in August of that year at age 55. Despite his prominent public role, Wilson was buried unknown at a cemetery at Mullick Bazar in

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

. His grave was discovered in 2007 by CP Bhatia, a joint commissioner of Income Tax, while researching a book on India's tax history. Due to the efforts of CP Bhatia the tombstone was restored by the Christian Burial Board.

Family

Wilson married Elizabeth Preston of

Newcastle-upon-Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...

in January 1832. They had six daughters, of whom Eliza, the eldest, married

Walter Bagehot Walter Bagehot ( ; 3 February 1826 – 24 March 1877) was an English journalist, businessman, and essayist, who wrote extensively about government, economics, literature and race. He is known for co-founding the '' National Review'' in 185 ...

Works

*
Influences of the corn laws, as affecting all classes of the community, and particularly the landed interests
'
Fluctuations of currency, commerce, and manufactures : referable to the corn laws

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, James 1805 births 1860 deaths 19th-century publishers (people) 19th-century Scottish businesspeople People from Hawick Anglo-Scots British business and financial journalists Milliners Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Scottish bankers Scottish economists Scottish journalists Scottish magazine editors Scottish magazine publishers (people) Scottish politicians Scottish Quakers The Economist editors UK MPs 1847–1852 UK MPs 1852–1857 UK MPs 1857–1859 United Kingdom Paymasters General 19th-century British journalists British male journalists Standard Chartered people Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for constituencies in Devon Politicians from Plymouth, Devon