Philip Henry Wicksteed (25 October 1844 – 18 March 1927) is known primarily as an economist. He was also a

Georgist Georgism, also called in modern times Geoism, and known historically as the single tax movement, is an economic ideology holding that, although people should own the value they produce themselves, the economic rent derived from land—including ...

classicist Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

medievalist The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...

, and

literary critic Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

Family background

He was the son of

Charles Wicksteed Charles Wicksteed (1810–1885) was a Unitarian minister, part of the tradition of English Dissenters. Early life and education Charles Wicksteed was born in Shrewsbury; his father was a manufacturer and his mother was descended from the great di ...

(1810–1885) and his wife Jane (1814–1902), and was named after his distant ancestor,

Philip Henry Philip Henry (24 August 1631 – 24 June 1696) was an English Nonconformist clergyman and diarist. His son Matthew Henry was a notable commentator on the Bible and also a Presbyterian minister. Early life Philip Henry was born at Whitehall, L ...

(1631–1696), the

Nonconformist Nonconformity or nonconformism may refer to: Culture and society * Insubordination, the act of willfully disobeying an order of one's superior *Dissent, a sentiment or philosophy of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or entity ** ...

clergyman and diarist. His father was a clergyman within the same tradition of English Dissent. His mother was born into the

Lupton family The Lupton family in Yorkshire achieved prominence in ecclesiastical and academic circles in England in the Tudor era through the fame of Roger Lupton, provost of Eton College and chaplain to Henry VII and Henry VIII. By the Georgian era, ...

, a socially progressive, politically active dynasty of businessmen and traders, long established in

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

, a city both prosperous and squalid with the rapid growth of the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

. In 1835 Wicksteed had taken up the ministry of the Unitarian place of worship,

Mill Hill Chapel Mill Hill Chapel is a Unitarian church in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is a member of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, the umbrella organisation for British Unitarians. The building, which stands in the centr ...

, right on the city's central square, and two years later the couple married. In 1841 his sister Elizabeth married Jane's brother Arthur (1819–1867), also a Unitarian minister; Uncle Arthur was, according to a family history, "The

Achilles In Greek mythology, Achilles ( ) or Achilleus ( grc-gre, Ἀχιλλεύς) was a hero of the Trojan War, the greatest of all the Greek warriors, and the central character of Homer's ''Iliad''. He was the son of the Nereid Thetis and Peleus, k ...

of the Leeds Complete Suffrage Association",Lupton, C.A., ''The Lupton Family in Leeds'', Wm. Harrison and Son 1965, p. 55 in other words, a tragic champion of the fight for

universal suffrage Universal suffrage (also called universal franchise, general suffrage, and common suffrage of the common man) gives the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, or political stanc ...

; see

Chartism Chartism was a working-class movement for political reform in the United Kingdom that erupted from 1838 to 1857 and was strongest in 1839, 1842 and 1848. It took its name from the People's Charter of 1838 and was a national protest movement, w ...

and

Henry Vincent Henry Vincent (10 May 1813 – 29 December 1878) was active in the formation of early Working Men's Associations in Britain, a popular Chartist leader, brilliant and gifted public orator, prospective but ultimately unsuccessful Victorian membe ...

for more on the CSA. One of their children, a first cousin to Philip, was the maverick MP and mining engineer

Arnold Lupton Arnold Lupton (11 September 1846 – 23 May 1930) was a British Liberal Party Member of Parliament, academic, anti-vaccinationist, mining engineer and a managing director (collieries). He was jailed for pacifist activity during the First ...

. Jane was described as impractical but accomplished (sketching, painting, reciting poetry etc.) and both the Wicksteed siblings as "Unitarians of vigorous mind and keen intelligence".Lupton, C.A. , ''The Lupton Family in Leeds'', Wm. Harrison and Son 1965, page 39 Philip was one of nine children, including Janet, who wrote, as Mrs Lewis, a memoir including her parents; (Joseph) Hartley, president of the

Institute of Mechanical Engineers The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) is an independent professional association and learned society headquartered in London, United Kingdom, that represents mechanical engineers and the engineering profession. With over 120,000 member ...

; and

Charles Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English language, English and French language, French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic, Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*k ...

, also an engineer. One of his nieces was Mary Cicely Wicksteed, who married the prominent Australian surgeon Sir Hibbert Alan Stephen Newton (1887–1949)

Education

Wicksteed was educated at

University College, London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...

and Manchester New College, the seminary for nonconformist ministers. In 1867 he received his master's degree with a gold medal in

classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

. Following his father into the Unitarian ministry that year, Wicksteed embarked on an extraordinarily broad range of scholarly and theological explorations. His

theological Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

and ethical writings continued long after he left the pulpit (in 1897), and appear to have been a starting point for many of his other fields of scholarly inquiry. These included his interest in

Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...

, which not only produced a remarkable list of publications, but also built Wicksteed's reputation as one of the foremost

medievalists Medievalism is a system of belief and practice inspired by the Middle Ages of Europe, or by devotion to elements of that period, which have been expressed in areas such as architecture, literature, music, art, philosophy, scholarship, and variou ...

of his time. Inspired by his reading of

Henry George Henry George (September 2, 1839 – October 29, 1897) was an American political economist and journalist. His writing was immensely popular in 19th-century America and sparked several reform movements of the Progressive Era. He inspired the eco ...

's 1879 book ''

Progress and Poverty ''Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy'' is an 1879 book by social theorist and economist Henry George. It is a treatise on the questions of why pover ...

'', Wicksteed's theologically driven interest in the ethics of modern society, appear to have led him into his economic studies. Perhaps it was just by circumstance that economics entered Wicksteed's field of scholarly vision, as only one of a number of areas of his interest (to most of which he was committed for years before he began his economics) and in the middle of the fourth decade of his life. This led

Joseph Schumpeter Joseph Alois Schumpeter (; February 8, 1883 – January 8, 1950) was an Austrian-born political economist. He served briefly as Finance Minister of German-Austria in 1919. In 1932, he emigrated to the United States to become a professor at Ha ...

to remark that Wicksteed "stood somewhat outside of the economics profession". Yet, within a few years Wicksteed was to publish significant economic work of his own, carefully expounding on the theory he learned from

William Stanley Jevons William Stanley Jevons (; 1 September 183513 August 1882) was an English economist and logician. Irving Fisher described Jevons's book ''A General Mathematical Theory of Political Economy'' (1862) as the start of the mathematical method in ec ...

, and to become for many years a lecturer on economics for the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

extension lectures (a kind of

adult education Adult education, distinct from child education, is a practice in which adults engage in systematic and sustained self-educating activities in order to gain new forms of knowledge, skills, attitudes, or values. Merriam, Sharan B. & Brockett, Ralp ...

program initiated in the 1870s to extend "the teaching of the universities, to serve up some of the crumbs from the university tables, in a portable and nutritious form, for some of the multitude who had no chance of sitting there"). In 1894, Wicksteed published his celebrated ''An Essay on the Co-ordination of the Laws of Distribution'', in which he sought to prove mathematically that a distributive system which rewarded factory owners according to

marginal productivity In economics and in particular neoclassical economics, the marginal product or marginal physical productivity of an input ( factor of production) is the change in output resulting from employing one more unit of a particular input (for instance, t ...

would exhaust the total product produced. But it was his 1910 ''The Common Sense of Political Economy'' which most comprehensively presents Wicksteed's

economic system An economic system, or economic order, is a system of Production (economics), production, resource allocation and Distribution (economics), distribution of goods and services within a society or a given geographic area. It includes the combinati ...

. The 1932 work by

Lionel Robbins Lionel Charles Robbins, Baron Robbins, (22 November 1898 – 15 May 1984) was a British economist, and prominent member of the economics department at the London School of Economics (LSE). He is known for his leadership at LSE, his proposed def ...

, ''

An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science Lionel Robbins' ''Essay'' (1932, 1935, 2nd ed., 158 pp.) sought to define more precisely economics as a science and to derive substantive implications. Analysis is relative to "accepted solutions of particular problems" based on best modern practi ...

'', picked up and developed his ideas.

Personal life

Wicksteed married Emily Solly, a daughter of

Henry Henry may refer to: People *Henry (given name) * Henry (surname) * Henry Lau, Canadian singer and musician who performs under the mononym Henry Royalty * Portuguese royalty ** King-Cardinal Henry, King of Portugal ** Henry, Count of Portugal, ...

, a Unitarian minister and social reformer. The library of

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

contains correspondence between Emily and Maria Sharpe Pearson, the wife of

Karl Pearson Karl Pearson (; born Carl Pearson; 27 March 1857 – 27 April 1936) was an English mathematician and biostatistician. He has been credited with establishing the discipline of mathematical statistics. He founded the world's first university st ...

. Wicksteed was a staunch opponent of

vivisection Vivisection () is surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure. The word is, more broadly, used as a pejorative catch-all term for experiment ...

. He became an associate of

Frances Power Cobbe Frances Power Cobbe (4 December 1822 – 5 April 1904) was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, religious thinker, social reformer, anti-vivisection activist and leading women's suffrage campaigner. She founded a number of animal advocacy group ...

and supported the anti-vivisection movement.Herford, Charles Harold. (1931). ''Philip Henry Wicksteed: His Life and Work''. J. M. Dent. p. 148.

Selected publications

''Memorials of the Rev. Charles Wicksteed''
(1886)
''Mr. Wicksteed on Vivisection''
(1889)
''Vivisection: An Address''''The Common Sense of Political Economy''
(1910)
''The Reactions Between Dogma & Philosophy''
(1920)

References

Sources

* Ian Steedman (1987). "Wicksteed, Philip Henry," ''The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', pp. 919–15. * reprinted in 1933, L. Robbins, ed., Clifton NJ: Augustus M. Kelley Publishers * ____ (1955) ''The Alphabet of Economic Science'', New York City NY: Kelley & Millman, Inc. * ____ (1914)
“The Scope and Method of Political Economy in the Light of the ‘Marginal’ Theory of Value and Distribution”
''Economic Journal'', 24(94), pp. 1–23 (reprinted in Wicksteed, 1933).

External links

* * * * ''The Common Sense of Political Economy''
Vol. I
an
Vol. II
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wicksteed, Philip 1844 births 1927 deaths Alumni of Harris Manchester College, Oxford Alumni of University College London Anti-vivisectionists English economists English Unitarians Georgist economists Neoclassical economics Neoclassical economists Translators of Dante Alighieri