Thomas Tooke
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Thomas Tooke (; 28 February 177426 February 1858) was an English economist known for writing on money and
economic statistics Economic statistics is a topic in applied statistics and applied economics that concerns the collection, processing, compilation, dissemination, and analysis of economic data. It is closely related to business statistics and econometrics. It ...
. After Tooke's death the
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. ...
endowed the Tooke Chair of economics 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 a Tooke Prize. In business, he served several terms between 1840 and 1852 as governor of the Royal Exchange Corporation. Likewise, he served for several terms as chairman of the St Katharine's Docks company. He was also an early director of the
London and Birmingham Railway The London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom, in operation from 1833 to 1846, when it became part of the London and North Western Railway (L&NWR). The railway line which the company opened in 1838, betw ...
.


Life

Born at
Kronstadt Kronstadt (, ) is a Russian administrative divisions of Saint Petersburg, port city in Kronshtadtsky District of the federal cities of Russia, federal city of Saint Petersburg, located on Kotlin Island, west of Saint Petersburg, near the head ...
on 29 February 1774, he was the eldest son of William Tooke, at that time chaplain to the British factory there. Thomas began his professional life at the age of fifteen in a house of business at
St Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
, and subsequently became a partner in the London firms of Stephen Thornton & Co., and Astell, Tooke, & Thornton. He took no serious part in discussion of economic questions until 1819, when he gave evidence before committees of both Houses of Parliament on the resumption of cash payments by the
Bank of England The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the Kingdom of England, English Government's banker and debt manager, and still one ...
. Tooke was one of the earliest supporters of the
free trade Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold Economic liberalism, economically liberal positions, while economic nationalist politica ...
movement which assumed the form in the petition of the merchants of the
City of London The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...
presented to the House of Commons by Alexander Baring, on 8 May 1820. This document was drawn up by Tooke; and the circumstances which led to its preparation are described in the sixth volume of his ''A History of Prices''.
Lord Liverpool Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (7 June 1770 – 4 December 1828) was a British Tory statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1812 to 1827. Before becoming Prime Minister he had been Foreign Secretary, ...
's government, especially through William Huskisson after 1828, moved in the direction sought. It was to support the principles of the merchants' petition that Tooke, with
David Ricardo David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British political economist, politician, and member of Parliament. He is recognized as one of the most influential classical economists, alongside figures such as Thomas Malthus, Ada ...
,
Robert Malthus Thomas Robert Malthus (; 13/14 February 1766 – 29 December 1834) was an English economist, cleric, and scholar influential in the fields of political economy and demography. In his 1798 book ''An Essay on the Principle of Population'', Mal ...
,
James Mill James Mill (born James Milne; 6 April 1773 – 23 June 1836) was a Scottish historian, economist, political theorist and philosopher. He is counted among the founders of the Ricardian school of economics. He also wrote '' The History of Britis ...
, and others, founded the Political Economy Club in April 1821. From the beginning Tooke took part in its discussions, and continued to attend its meetings to the end of his life. Out of controversy over
paper money Paper money, often referred to as a note or a bill (North American English), is a type of negotiable promissory note that is payable to the bearer on demand, making it a form of currency. The main types of paper money are government notes, which ...
emerged the
Bank Charter Act 1844 The Bank Charter Act 1844 ( 7 & 8 Vict. c. 32), sometimes referred to as the Peel Banking Act of 1844, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, passed under the government of Robert Peel, which restricted the powers of British bank ...
, the main object of which was to prevent the over-issue of notes. Tooke was opposed to the provisions of the act. He thought that by some changes in the management of the Bank of England, coupled with the compulsory maintenance of a much larger reserve of bullion, more satisfactory results would be achieved. Besides giving evidence on economic questions before several parliamentary committees, such as those of 1821 on agricultural depression and on foreign trade, of 1832, 1840, and 1848 on the Bank Acts, Tooke was a member of the factories inquiry commission of 1833. He retired from active business on his own account in 1836, but was governor of the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation from 1840 to 1852, and was also chairman of the St. Katharine's Dock Company. He was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...
in March 1821, and ''membre correspondant de l'Institut de France'' (
Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...
) in February 1853. He resided in London at 12
Russell Square Russell Square is a large garden square in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden, built predominantly by the firm of James Burton (property developer), James Burton. It is near the University of London's main buildings and the British Mus ...
, then later in Richmond Terrace, and at 31 Spring Gardens, where he died on 26 February 1858. He is buried at
Kensal Green Cemetery Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in the Kensal Green area of North Kensington in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in London, England. Inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in P ...
. In the year after Tooke's death the Tooke professorship of economic science and statistics at King's College, London, was founded in his memory, the endowment being raised by public subscription. There was a watercolour sketch of Tooke in the office of the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation, and a portrait was painted by Sir Martin Archer Shee.


Works

As a follower of Ricardo, Francis Horner, and Huskisson, Tooke was a supporter of the principles embodied in the report of the bullion committee of 1810. The three years which followed the Resumption of Cash Payments Act 1819 were marked by a fall in the prices of nearly all commodities. An opinion gained ground that the fall was due to a contraction of the currency which was assumed to result from the return to cash payments. To combat this view was the task to which Tooke applied himself in his earliest work, ''Thoughts and Details on the High and Low Prices of the last Thirty Years'' (1823), and the same line of argument is pursued in his ''Considerations on the State of the Currency'' (1826), and in a ''Letter to Lord Grenville'' (1829). He entered on a detailed examination of the causes which might affect prices, and claimed to establish the conclusion that the variations, both during the period of restriction and after the resumption, were due to circumstances directly connected with the commodities themselves, and not to alterations in the quantity of money.


The ''History of Prices''

Tooke is best known for his ''A History of Prices and of the State of the Circulation during the Years 1793–1856'' (6 vols., 1838–1857). In the first four volumes he treats (a) of the prices of corn, and the circumstances affecting prices; (b) the prices of produce other than corn; and (c) the state of the circulation. The two final volumes, written with
William Newmarch William Newmarch (28 January 1820 – 23 March 1882) was an English banker, economist and statistician. Life Born at Thirsk, Yorkshire, Newmarch went to school in York; as a young man, he held posts as a clerk there. A clerk for a stamp distri ...
, deal with railways, free trade, banking in Europe and the effects of new discoveries of gold. The first two volumes dealt with the period from 1793 to 1837, and were published in 1838. His conclusions were that the high prices which, speaking generally, ruled between 1793 and 1814 were due to a relatively large number of unfavourable seasons, coupled with the obstructions to trade which were created by the
Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...
; while the lower range of prices in the subsequent years was attributable to a series of more prolific seasons, the removal of the state of war, and improvement in the processes of manufacture and industry. ''A History of Prices'' was completed in six volumes; the third, dealing with the years 1838–9, was published in 1840, the fourth in 1848, and the fifth and sixth in 1857, the year before Tooke's death. The whole work comprises an analysis of the financial and commercial history of the period which it covers. The later volumes record of the steps by which Tooke gradually severed himself from the supporters of the currency theory, the direct heirs of the
bullionist Bullionism is an economic theory that defines wealth by the amount of precious metals owned. Bullionism is an early and perhaps more primitive form of mercantilism. It was derived, during the 16th century, from the observation that the Kingdom of E ...
s of 1810 and 1819. This summary of Tooke's views represents his opinions as they took shape between 1840 and 1844, and were defined in his ''Enquiry into the Currency Principle'' (1844). But in his earlier writings there are many passages inconsistent with his later opinions. The supporters of the 'currency theory,' whose principles were adopted by
Robert Peel Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet (5 February 1788 – 2 July 1850), was a British Conservative statesman who twice was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1834–1835, 1841–1846), and simultaneously was Chancellor of the Exchequer (1834–183 ...
and embodied in the Bank Charter Act 1844, were represented by Samuel Jones Loyd, Robert Torrens, and George Warde Norman. They contended that banks of issue, by the arbitrary extension of their circulation, could produce a direct effect on prices, and thus stimulate financial speculation; that convertibility on demand was not a sufficient safeguard; and that the only adequate remedy was to separate the business of issue from that of banking in such a way that the former should regulate itself automatically, and that the discretion of the directors should be confined to the latter. Tooke, on the other hand, reinforced later on by John Fullarton and James Wilson, maintained that a paper currency which was readily convertible on demand must necessarily conform to the value of a purely metallic currency; that for this purpose no other regulation was required beyond ready convertibility; that under these conditions banks had no power of arbitrarily increasing their issues; and that the level of prices was not directly affected by such issues. Before the committee of 1832 Tooke stated that, according to his experience, a rise or fall of prices had invariably preceded, and could not therefore be caused by, an enlargement or contraction of the circulation. This view, while inconsistent with the quantity theory of money, is consistent with the real bills doctrine. On this view, a fall in the value of the assets of a money-issuing bank would cause the value of the bank's notes to fall. The public would then require more notes to conduct business, and the bank would willingly issue those notes to customers who offered assets of adequate value in exchange. Thus the quantity of notes would increase after the price level had risen.


Family

He married, in 1802, Priscilla Combe, by whom he had three sons.


Bibliography

''A History of Prices'' in six volumes: * * * * * *


Notes


References


Sources

* * *


Obituaries

* Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London
1857–1859 vol 9
pp 550–551 * Reprints the obituary in the ''Economist'' and describes the plans for a Tooke memorial


External links

*

fro

* There is information on the Tooke chair and the distinguished economists who have held it in
P. M. Robinson: Denis Sargan – Some Perspectives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tooke, Thomas 1774 births 1858 deaths People from Kronstadt People from Petergofsky Uyezd Classical economists English economists Insurance underwriters Fellows of the Royal Society Burials at Kensal Green Cemetery Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United Kingdom