Joseph Shield Nicholson, FBA

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

(9 November 1850 – 12 May 1927) was an English economist.

Life

Nicholson was born in

Wrawby Wrawby is a village in North Lincolnshire, England. It lies east of Brigg and close to Humberside Airport, on the A18 road (England), A18. The United Kingdom Census 2001, 2001 Census recorded a village population of 1,293, in around 600 homes, ...

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...

on 9 November 1850 the only son of Mary Anne Grant and her husband Rev Thomas Nicholson, minister of Banbury. He was educated at

Lewisham Lewisham ( ) is an area of southeast London, England, south of Charing Cross. It is the principal area of the London Borough of Lewisham, and was within the Historic counties of England, historic county of Kent until 1889. It is identified in ...

School in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. Nicholson studied Logic and Metaphysics at

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

and the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

, then studied Moral Philosophy at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

and

Heidelberg University Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is Germany's oldest unive ...

. He was a private tutor at Cambridge from 1876 to 1880 coming to fame in 1877 when he won the Cambridge

Cobden Club The Cobden Club was a society and publishing imprint, based in London, run along the lines of a gentlemen's club of the Victorian era, but without permanent club premises of its own. Founded in 1866 by Thomas Bayley Potter for believers in Free ...

prize for his essay "''The Effects of Machinery on Wages''". In 1880 he became

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

political economy Political or comparative economy is a branch of political science and economics studying economic systems (e.g. Marketplace, markets and national economies) and their governance by political systems (e.g. law, institutions, and government). Wi ...

at the University of Edinburgh. At this time he lived at 15 Jordan Lane in Morningside. He was the first President of the Scottish Society of Economists, serving from its creation in 1897 until 1903. In 1884 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

. His proposers were

George Chrystal George Chrystal FRSE FRS (8 March 1851 – 3 November 1911) was a Scottish mathematician. He is primarily known for his books on algebra and his studies of seiches (wave patterns in large inland bodies of water) which earned him a Gold Meda ...

Alexander Crum Brown Alexander Crum Brown Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, FRSE Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (26 March 1838 – 28 October 1922) was a Scottish Organic chemistry, organic chemist. Alexander Crum Brown Road in Edinburgh's King's Buildi ...

, Alexander Buchan and

Peter Guthrie Tait Peter Guthrie Tait (28 April 18314 July 1901) was a Scottish Mathematical physics, mathematical physicist and early pioneer in thermodynamics. He is best known for the mathematical physics textbook ''Treatise on Natural Philosophy'', which he ...

. in 1918, he was awarded the Guy Medal in Silver by the

Royal Statistical Society The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is an established statistical society. It has three main roles: a British learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity which promotes statistics for the public good. ...

. In later life he lived at 3 Belford Park near

Dean Village Dean Village (from ''dene'', meaning 'deep valley') is a former village immediately northwest of the city centre of Edinburgh, Scotland. It is bounded by Belford Road to the south and west, Belgrave Crescent Gardens to the north and below the ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

. In 1925, Nicholson resigned his chair due to ill health and died in Edinburgh on 12 May 1927. He is buried with his wife, Jane (Jeannie) Walmsley Hodgson, in the 20th-century extension to

Dean Cemetery The Dean Cemetery is a historically important Victorian cemetery north of the Dean Village, west of Edinburgh city centre, in Scotland. It lies between Queensferry Road and the Water of Leith, bounded on its east side by Dean Path and o ...

, Edinburgh, in the central section.

Works

Nicholson's writings represent a compromise between the methods of the historical school of German economics and those of the English deductive school. In his principal work, ''Principles of Political Economy'' (three volumes, 1893–1901), he closely follows

John Stuart Mill John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, politician and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism and social liberalism, he contributed widely to s ...

in his selection of material, but employs

statistical Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...

and

historical History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some theorists categ ...

discussion, instead of the abstract reasoning from simple assumption that characterises Mill's work.

References

External links

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Portraits of Nicholson (National Portrait Gallery, England)John Shield Nicholson - The University of Sydney
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nicholson, Joseph Shield English economists 1850 births 1927 deaths Alumni of King's College London Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Academics of the University of Edinburgh Fellows of the British Academy