Abstract
George Pryme was the first Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge, a position which has been held my many luminaries down the years and which continues to hold much prestige. This chapter begins by examining Pryme’s life and varied activities, many of which were in fact outside ‘political economy’, before focusing on the trials and tribulations he had to endure over a number of decades in order to establish the Professorship on a permanent basis and to integrate the study of political economy more fully into the Cambridge curriculum, beginning with him being the first person to deliver a full set of lectures in the subject at any English university. The chapter concludes by arguing that Pryme should be more recognised for his crusading efforts.
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Notes
- 1.
For instance, although Pryme must have been known to Schumpeter, he fails to get a mention in the great Austrian’s monumental, albeit somewhat idiosyncratic, History of Economic Analysis.
- 2.
Through his mother, Pryme was distantly related to the Anglican minister, theologian, and co-founder of Methodism, John Wesley.
- 3.
Pryme continued to compose poetry well into later life. His Jephthah, and Other Poems, which appeared in 1838, was critiqued in The Monthly Review, where it was noted that ‘from a lecturer on the principles and sources of the wealth of nations, one does not readily expect to hear the chieftain’s triumphs or the maiden’s tragedy chaunted in loftily constructed rhyme’ (Anonymous 1838: 308). Poetic works by Pryme also get their own listing in The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature: 1800–1900, published as recently as 1999 (Shattock 1999).
- 4.
Fetter (1975) examines the influence that economists elected as MPs had on British legislation during the period from 1819, Ricardo’s election to parliament, to 1868, when John Stuart Mill left parliament. Fetter argues that ‘in the halls of Westminster…back-benchers had an impact on legislation, by voting, by speeches, by sponsoring of legislation, and by activities on committees, that is unmatched at any other time or in any other country’ (ibid.: 1,060). Fetter’s text mentions Pryme twice, albeit only in passing on both occasions.
- 5.
A motion introduced by Pryme to the Commons in 1837 for reform of the universities was withdrawn after he was assured that an overhaul would follow soon thereafter (see Rashid 1980: 288). However, reform did not take place for at least another 15 years.
- 6.
The grand jury system eventually ceased to be used, at least in England, in 1933.
- 7.
Pryme was also a very good friend of anti-slavery campaigner Thomas Perronet Thompson; the two had been at school and Cambridge together. It does not seem unreasonable to argue that Thompson was an influence on the development of Pryme’s liberalism. (Copies of the letters exchanged between Pryme and Thompson are housed at the Hull University Archive. See http://www.hull.ac.uk/arc/downloads/DTHcatalogue’pdf.)
- 8.
One of Pryme’s legacies was his collection of books on economics. As Fetter notes, ‘In 1840 it was probably the greatest collection of English economic literature in the world’ (Fetter 1939: 416). It has nevertheless had a somewhat nomadic existence. The collection was given to Cambridge in 1872 but remained uncatalogued until the mid-1930s. The books then arrived at the Marshall Library, where they were restored and catalogued under Sraffa’s direction. The Pryme Collection is currently housed in the Rare Books Section of Cambridge University Library. It is made up of around 1,850 volumes, of which over 1,500 are British (see ibid.).
- 9.
Pryme notes how Stewart’s lectures were apparently so popular that ‘several Members of our own University [Cambridge] went from the South of England to pass the winter at Edinburgh, for the purpose of attending them’ (Pryme 1819: vii–viii, fn. †). What Pryme does not mention was the absence of regular lectures on political economy at turn-of-the-century Cambridge as well as the fact that the Grand Tour had become too dangerous due to the French Revolutionary Wars, in particular the War of the Second Coalition from 1798 to 1802 (see Checkland 1951: 43). Both of these factors contributed to English students travelling north in search of new experiences and ‘excitement’.
- 10.
This paragraph draws on Langer (1987: 1–9).
- 11.
For ease of reference, I use the Prefaces to the first three editions of Pryme’s Syllabus as they appear, reprinted from the originals, in the fourth edition of the Syllabus (Pryme 1859). Pryme does not appear to have written a Preface to the fourth edition.
- 12.
A copy of Pryme’s 1816 syllabus can be found in the form of an appendix in Langer (1987: 195–208).
- 13.
A full set of notes (79 pages) taken by the otherwise unidentified ‘W.H. and C.J.’ at the set of lectures given by Pryme in 1818 are held at Lambeth Palace Library, reference MS 1740.
- 14.
Selected other issues on which Pryme attempts to ‘controvert’ Smith, as he usually puts it, are the origin and cause of barter, Smith’s account of the influence of capital on wages and profits, and the approach that Smith adopts in criticising the proposition that land is the sole source of wealth, which Pryme claims is an attack on ‘the superstructure, not the foundation’ (Pryme 1819: 21). Smith was not Pryme’s only target. He also questioned, amongst others, Paley on the foundation of the right of property; Aristotle, Montesquieu, and Locke on the notion of monied interest; and the French economists’ view that all taxes fall ultimately on land.
- 15.
Kubo (2013: 82–86) shows that, despite his claim, Pryme did not arrive independently at Ricardo’s theory of value and, moreover, that he did not understand it.
- 16.
The translation from French (which is how it appears in Pryme’s Autobiography) to English used here can be found in Gehrke and Kurz (2001: 479, fn. 13).
- 17.
Pryme’s reluctance to overtly support Ricardo was made further apparent on the occasion of Ricardo’s death in 1823 when James Mill wrote to McCulloch stating that they were his only two genuine disciples (see Checkland 1949: 40). In the same article, Checkland adopts a sociology of science approach to argue that it was Ricardo’s disciples who were the key to propagating Ricardianism in the face of stiff opposition.
- 18.
It was retained in the fourth edition (1859).
- 19.
Pryme himself would become involved in trying to reform the University’s religious arrangements. In December 1834, he suggested to the Senate, unsuccessfully as it turned out, that it appoint a committee to consider whether the requirement of religious subscription in order to proceed to a degree should be abolished (see Twaddle 1966: 48–49).
- 20.
The Professorship of Political Economy did eventually attract a salary. However, it was not until 1882 when its then occupant Henry Fawcett—also a Ricardian, whose election as Pryme’s successor in 1863 was supported by Pryme but opposed by Whewell—started to receive £700 per annum that the Professor of Political Economy achieved parity, more or less, with other Cambridge professors (see Neild 2012: 16).
- 21.
A small digression: Huskisson certainly had an eventful life: When in Paris he witnessed the storming of the Bastille, was educated in economics by the Marquis de Condorcet, and served in the British government as President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for War. However, he is best remembered as the first person to be killed in a railway accident having been run over by Stephenson’s Rocket as he attempted to shake hands with one its occupants, the Duke of Wellington, at the opening of the Liverpool to Manchester Railway.
- 22.
Pryme was an official examiner for the new Tripos from 1851 to 1860.
References
Main Works by George Pryme
Pryme, G. (1819). A Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on the Principles of Political Economy. Second edition. Cambridge: J. Smith.
Pryme, G. (1823). An Introductory Lecture and Syllabus to a Course Delivered in the University of Cambridge on the Principles of Political Economy. Cambridge: J. Smith.
Pryme, G. (1859). A Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on the Principles of Political Economy. Fourth edition. Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, and Co.
Pryme, G. (1870). Autobiographic Recollections of George Pryme, Esq. M.A., Sometime Fellow of Trinity College, Professor of Political Economy in the University of Cambridge, & M.P. for the Borough. Edited by his daughter. Cambridge: Deighton, Bell.
Other Works Referred To
Anonymous (1838). ‘Review of “Jephthah, and Other Poems”, by George Pryme’. The Monthly Review, II(II): 308–310.
Checkland, S.G. (1949). ‘The Propagation of Ricardian Economics in England’. Economica, New Series, 16(61): 40–52.
Checkland, S.G. (1951). ‘The Advent of Academic Economics in England’. The Manchester School of Economic and Social Studies, 19(1): 43–70.
Elliff, N.T. (1938). ‘Notes on the Abolition of the English Grand Jury’. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 29(1): 3–22.
Fetter, F.W. (1939). ‘The Pryme Library of Economics at Cambridge University’. Journal of Political Economy, 47(3): 414–417.
Fetter, F.W. (1975). ‘The Influence of Economists in Parliament on British Legislation from Ricardo to John Stuart Mill’. Journal of Political Economy, 83(5): 1,051–1,064.
Gehrke, C. and H.D. Kurz (2001). ‘Say and Ricardo on Value and Distribution’. European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 8(4): 449–486.
Henderson, J.P. (1984). ‘“Just Notions of Political Economy” – George Pryme, the First Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge’. In Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology. Volume 2. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press: 1–20.
Henderson, J.P. (1996). Early Mathematical Economics: William Whewell and the British Case. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Hicks, J.R. (1953). ‘An Inaugural Lecture’. Oxford Economic Papers, New Series, 5(2): 117–135.
Johnson, E.S. and H.G. Johnson (1974). ‘The Social and Intellectual Origins of The General Theory’. History of Political Economy, 6(3): 261–277.
Kubo, S. (2013). ‘George Pryme, Dugald Stewart, and Political Economy at Cambridge’. History of Political Economy, 45(1): 61–97.
Kubo, S. (2015). ‘Political Economy at Mid-Nineteenth Century Cambridge: Reform, Free Trade, and the Figure of Ricardo’. European Journal of the History of Economic Thought (published online 15 August): 1–24.
Langer, G.F. (1987). The Coming of Age of Political Economy, 1815–1825. New York: Greenwood Press.
Neild. R. (2012). The Financial History of Cambridge University. London: Thames River Press.
Rashid, S. (1980). ‘The Growth of Economic Studies at Cambridge: 1776–1860’. History of Education Quarterly, 20(3): 281–294.
Reid, C. (2013). ‘Whig Declamation and Rhetorical Freedom at Trinity College, Cambridge, 1770–1805’. The Review of English Studies, New Series, 64(266): 630–650.
Rothbard, M.H. (2006). An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought: Economic Thought Before Adam Smith. Volume 1. Ludwig von Mises Institute: Auburn, Alabama.
Shattock, J. (ed.) (1999). The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature: 1800–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Twaddle, M. (1966). ‘The Oxford and Cambridge Admissions Controversy of 1834’. British Journal of Educational Studies, 14(3): 45–58.
Warwick, A. (2003). Masters of Theory: Cambridge and the Rise of Mathematical Physics. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
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Cord, R.A. (2017). George Pryme (1781–1868). In: Cord, R. (eds) The Palgrave Companion to Cambridge Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-41233-1_12
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