Prologue: Before PPE

Abstract

Economics at Oxford in 1900 was in a curious state. Although the Drummond Chair in Political Economy was established in 1825, economics, or political economy as it was then called, did not have an independent role in the undergraduate curriculum until the operation of the Honour School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) in the Michaelmas term of 1921. Instead, between 1825 and 1872, it was offered as a minor optional subject in the Honour School of Literae Humaniores. With the establishment of the Honour School of Modem History in 1872, it was also possible to take economics as an optional subject there as well. Initially, the subject areas offered in political economy were quite limited, but this expanded over time as the number of students entering the Modern History School and taking the economics option grew in the 1880s, in particular as a result of the interesting lectures offered by T.H. Green and Arnold Toynbee.¹