Sir Edward Anthony Wrigley (17 August 1931 – 24 February 2022) was a British historical demographer. Wrigley and

Peter Laslett Thomas Peter Ruffell Laslett (18 December 1915 – 8 November 2001) was an English historian. Biography Laslett was the son of a Baptist minister and was born in Bedford on 18 December 1915. Although he spent much of his childhood in Oxford, ...

co-founded the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure in 1964.The Times, 17 August 2009
/ref> Wrigley was born in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

on 17 August 1931. Wrigley's scholarly works focus on

demographic history Demographic history is the reconstructed record of human population in the past. Given the lack of population records prior to the 1950s, there are many gaps in our record of demographic history. Historical demographers must make do with estimates, ...

, and the long-term causes and effects of

urbanization Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...

and

industrialization Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...

. Among his many publications, Wrigley is known for the book ''Continuity, Chance and Change'', published in 1988, in which he explained why

Malthus Thomas Robert Malthus (; 13/14 February 1766 – 29 December 1834) was an English cleric, scholar and influential economist in the fields of political economy and demography. In his 1798 book ''An Essay on the Principle of Population'', Malt ...

was wrong about the law of diminishing returns slowing population growth. His most celebrated work, however, is ''The Population History of England, 1541-1871'', published in 1981 with co-author Roger S. Schofield. Wrigley completed undergraduate and postgraduate courses at

Peterhouse, Cambridge Peterhouse is the oldest constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Today, Peterhouse has 254 undergraduates, 116 full-time graduate students and 54 fellows. It is quite ...

between 1949-1958. He was elected as a Fellow of Peterhouse in the latter year and held office until 1979, when he became an Emeritus Fellow there and also Professor of Population Studies at the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

. He ceased the professorship in 1988 to become a Senior Research Fellow at

All Souls College, Oxford All Souls College (official name: College of the Souls of All the Faithful Departed) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows (i.e., full members of t ...

and returned to Cambridge as Professor of Economic History for the period 1994-1997. As of 2019, he was an Honorary Fellow at Peterhouse. He was Master of

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Corpus Christi College (full name: "The College of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary", often shortened to "Corpus"), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. From the late 14th century through to the early 19th century ...

from 1994 until 2000, and was elected a

Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in the United Kingdom # C ...

in 1980, serving as president from 1997 to 2001. He was also a member of both the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

and the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

. He was the recipient of the 2005 Leverhulme Medal and Prize awarded by the British Academy and in the same year became a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College. In 1960, Wrigley married Mieke Spelberg, with whom by 1972 he had three daughters and a son. He died on 24 February 2022, at the age of 90.

Publications

*''Industrial growth and population change; a regional study of the coalfield areas of north-west Europe in the later nineteenth century'', Cambridge University Press 1961, *''An introduction to English historical demography from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century'', editor,Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London) 1966 *''Population and history'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London) 1969, *''Nineteenth-century society essays in the use of quantitative methods for the study of social data'', editor, Cambridge University Press 1972, * ''Population private choice and public policy'', The Lindsey Press (London) 1972, The Essex Hall lecture *''Identifying people in the past'', Arnold (London) 1973, *
Towns in Societies
' (editor, 1978) *''People, cities, and wealth: the transformation of traditional society'', Blackwell 1987, *''The population history of England, 1541-1871: a reconstruction'', Harvard University Press (Cambridge, Mass) 1981, *''People Cities and Wealth: The Transformation of Traditional Society'', Blackwell Publishers 1989, *''Continuity, Chance and Change: The Character of the Industrial Revolution in England'', Cambridge University Press 1990, *''Poverty, Progress, and Population'', Cambridge University Press 2004, *''English Population History from Family Reconstitution 1580-1837'', with R. S. Davies, J. E. Oeppen and R. S. Schofield, Cambridge University Press 2005, *''Industrial Growth and Population Change'', Cambridge University Press 2007, *''Energy and the English Industrial Revolution'', Cambridge University Press 2010, * ''The Path to Sustained Growth. England's Transition from an Organic Economy to an Industrial Revolution.'' Cambridge University Press, 2016, .

References

External links

Personal page at Cambridge University Department of Geographyinterviewed by Alan Macfarlane, 23 July 2007 (video)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wrigley, Tony 1931 births 2022 deaths British demographers English historians Fellows of the British Academy Knights Bachelor Masters of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Presidents of the British Academy Members of the University of Cambridge faculty of history Honorary Fellows of the London School of Economics Fellows of Peterhouse, Cambridge Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford Members of the American Philosophical Society