John Howlett (1731–1804) was an English

political economist Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour m ...

and cleric.

Life

He was son of John Howlett of Bedworth in

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Av ...

. He matriculated at St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford, on 10 November 1749, aged 18, and graduated B.A. from St. John's College, Oxford in 1755, M.A. in 1795, and B.D. in 1796. He was presented to the living of

Great Dunmow Great Dunmow is a historic market town and civil parish in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England. It is situated on the north of the A120 road, approximately midway between Bishop's Stortford and Braintree, five miles east of London Stans ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

, in 1771, and was also vicar of Great Badow. He died at Bath, Somerset on 29 February 1804.

Works

Howlett wrote on the statistics and condition of the people, and criticised the theories and writings of

Richard Price Richard Price (23 February 1723 – 19 April 1791) was a British moral philosopher, Nonconformist minister and mathematician. He was also a political reformer, pamphleteer, active in radical, republican, and liberal causes such as the French ...

. In contradiction to Price, he maintained that

enclosure Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or " common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...

s resulted from the increase in population. His works, with separately published sermons, are: *''An Examination of Dr. Price's Essay on the Population of England and Wales'', 1781 *''An Enquiry into the Influence which Enclosures have had upon the Population of England'', 1786 *''An Essay on the Population of Ireland'', 1786 *''Enclosures a cause of Improved Agriculture'', 1787. This is a rejoinder to reviews of his previous work on enclosures. *''The Insufficiency of the causes to which the Increase of our Poor and the Poor's Rates have been generally ascribed'', 1788 *At end of Wood's Account of Shrewsbury House of Industry a ''Correspondence with Howlett'', 1795 *''An Examination of Mr. Pitt's Speech in the House of Commons on 12 Feb. 1796, relative to the condition of the Poor'', 1796 *''Dispersion of the present gloomy apprehensions of late repeatedly suggested by the Decline of our Corn Trade, and conclusions of a directly opposite tendency established upon well-authenticated facts. To which are added Observations upon the first Report of the Committee on Waste Lands'', 1798 *''The Monthly Reviewers reviewed in a Letter to those Gentlemen, pointing out their Misrepresentations and fallacious Reasonings in the Account of the Pamphlet'', 1798 *''An Inquiry concerning the Influence of Tithes upon Agriculture'', with remarks on Arthur Young, 1801

Notes

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Howlett, John 1731 births 1804 deaths English economists 18th-century English Anglican priests Alumni of St John's College, Oxford People from Bedworth