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 denoted all cereal grains, including wheat, oats and barley. The laws were designed to keep corn prices high to favour domestic farmers, and represented British mercantilism. The Corn Laws blocked the import of cheap corn, initially by simply forbidding importation below a set price, and later by imposing steep import duties, making it too expensive to import it from abroad, even when food supplies were short. The House of Commons passed the corn law bill on 10 March 1815, the House of Lords on 20 March and the bill received royal assent on 23 March 1815.
William Stanley Jevons was an English economist and logician.
The historical school of economics was an approach to academic economics and to public administration that emerged in the 19th century in Germany, and held sway there until well into the 20th century. The professors involved compiled massive economic histories of Germany and Europe. Numerous Americans were their students. The school was opposed by theoretical economists. Prominent leaders included Gustav von Schmoller (1838–1917), and Max Weber (1864–1920) in Germany, and Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950) in Austria and the United States.
John Bright was a British Radical and Liberal statesman, one of the greatest orators of his generation and a promoter of free trade policies.
Sir Henry James Sumner Maine,, was a British Whig comparative jurist and historian. He is famous for the thesis outlined in his book Ancient Law that law and society developed "from status to contract." According to the thesis, in the ancient world individuals were tightly bound by status dealing with(in) a particular group while in the modern one, in which individuals are viewed as autonomous agents, they are free to make contracts and form associations with whomever they choose. Because of this thesis, Maine can be seen as one of the forefathers of modern legal anthropology, legal history and sociology of law.
Thomas Edward Cliffe Leslie was an Irish jurist and economist. He was professor of jurisprudence and political economy in Queen's College, Belfast, noted for challenging the Wages-Fund doctrine and for addressing contemporary agrarian policy questions. A critic of Ricardian orthodoxy, he said that it had sidelined consumer behaviour and demand. He developed the idea of consumer sovereignty, but insisted that the analysis of demand should be based on historical and comparative institutional work.
The Anti–Corn Law League was a successful political movement in Great Britain aimed at the abolition of the unpopular Corn Laws, which protected landowners’ interests by levying taxes on imported wheat, thus raising the price of bread at a time when factory-owners were trying to cut wages. The League was a middle-class nationwide organisation that held many well-attended rallies on the premise that a crusade was needed to convince parliament to repeal the corn laws. Its long-term goals included the removal of feudal privileges, which it denounced as impeding progress, lowering economic well-being, and restricting freedom. The League played little role in the final act in 1846, when Sir Robert Peel led the successful battle for repeal. However, its experience provided a model that was widely adopted in Britain and other democratic nations to demonstrate the organisation of a political pressure group with the popular base.
Émile Louis Victor de Laveleye was a Belgian economist. He was one of the co-founders of the Institut de Droit International in 1873.
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, generally referred to by its shortened title The Wealth of Nations, is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith (1723–1790). First published in 1776, the book offers one of the world's first connected accounts of what builds nations' wealth, and has become a fundamental work in classical economics. Reflecting upon economics at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, Smith addresses topics such as the division of labour, productivity, and free markets.
Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher was an English historian, educator, and Liberal politician. He served as President of the Board of Education in David Lloyd George's 1916 to 1922 coalition government.
Sir Louis Mallet CB PC was a British civil servant who was an advocate of free trade and served on the Council of India.
The Drummond Professorship of Political Economy at All Souls College, Oxford has been held by a number of distinguished individuals, including three Nobel laureates. The professorship is named after and was founded by Henry Drummond.
Edwin Cannan was a British economist and historian of economic thought. He taught at the London School of Economics from 1895 to 1926.
The Political Economy Club is the world's oldest economics association that was founded by James Mill. It was founded in 1821 in London with David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus, and Robert Torrens, because there were not any professional associations for free trade economists to peer-review their work. Despite Mill's exclusive limit to 30 members: the Political Economy Club was a predominant influence on 19th century economics.
Francis Wrigley Hirst was a British journalist, writer and editor of The Economist magazine. He was a Liberal in party terms and a classical liberal in ideology.
The English historical school of economics, although not nearly as famous as its German counterpart, sought a return of inductive methods in economics, following the triumph of the deductive approach of David Ricardo in the early 19th century. The school considered itself the intellectual heirs of past figures who had emphasised empiricism and induction, such as Francis Bacon and Adam Smith. Included in this school are William Whewell, Richard Jones, Thomas Edward Cliffe Leslie, Walter Bagehot, Thorold Rogers, Arnold Toynbee, William Cunningham, and William Ashley.
Herbert Somerton Foxwell, FBA was an English economist.
Neil De Marchi, is an Australian economist and historian of economic thought and is a professor at Duke University. De Marchi specializes in both teaching and research that pertains to the history of economic ideas and the history of markets, and also the functioning of markets with a specific focus on art markets. His works have appeared in such journals as the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, the Journal of Econometrics, the European Journal for the History of Economic Thought, and the Art Bulletin. He has also contributed to pieces within various books, having written introductions to such works as “Idealization in Economics, Poznan Studies 38,” and a biographical entry of John Stuart Mill for The Handbook of Economic Methodology. De Marchi received his Ph.D. from Australian National University in 1970, after completing his B.Phil. in economics at the University of Oxford. He also obtained his B.Ec. with first-class honors in 1960 from the University of Western Australia. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the History of Economics Society.
Emma Jane Catherine Cobden was a British Liberal politician who was active in many radical causes. A daughter of the Victorian reformer and statesman Richard Cobden, she was an early proponent of women's rights, and was one of two women elected to the inaugural London County Council in 1889. Her election was controversial; legal challenges to her eligibility hampered and eventually prevented her from serving as a councillor.
James Edward Rogers was an Irish artist, architect, and book-illustrator whose early career was in Dublin. In 1876 he moved to London, where he is believed to have worked only as an artist.
