II. JEVONS AND CAMBRIDGE

Although it has been suggested that there was a “general animosity of Cambridge academia towards Jevons’s work, as exemplified by Sidgwick and Marshall in particular” (Maas Reference Maas2005, p. 32n), the response to Jevons was more complicated than this statement indicates.Footnote ⁵ It is difficult to square, for example, with Jevons’ employment as an examiner for the Moral Sciences Tripos in the 1870s. Nor were all the economists hostile, as the cases of John Neville Keynes and Foxwell attest (see below). Even Sidgwick was by no means an unqualified critic. While, as noted above, he was unsparing in his denunciation of the rhetoric Jevons had used when characterizing the work of Ricardo and Mill, Sidgwick also informed Foxwell that

That statement was consistent with the analysis in his Principles where Sidgwick argued that Jevons’ “doctrine” had made an important analytical contribution by providing a “clearer and completer view” of demand than had Mill (Sidgwick Reference Sidgwick1883, pp. 74–77, 187–188). This was the basis of what became the dominant Cambridge view of TPE: while Jevons’ doctrine of final utility was important, it was only an addition to, rather than a theoretical break with, the existing corpus of theory. It is difficult, however, to characterize someone who was publicly “quite content to be described in general terms as a follower of Jevons” as driven by an animus towards his work.Footnote ⁷

The same cannot be said of Alfred Marshall, whose Principles of Economics provided a more negative variant, so far as Jevons was concerned, of the Cambridge view of analytical continuity. In a discussion of nineteenth-century British value theory, Marshall portrayed Jevons as a critic who had reacted against his predecessors’ emphasis on cost of production—and hence supply—by exaggerating the importance of demand as explained by a marginal utility theory (Marshall Reference Marshall and Guillebaud.1961, pp. 817–821). The import of that sketch was not simply that a necessary analytical balance had been restored. As Langford Price explained in the newly established Economic Journal, the authority accorded Marshall’s text would serve to construct the image of economics as an authoritative discourse. If the situation had remained as it was after the publication of Jevons’ attacks on the authority of the “orthodox” school in the 1870s,

Relying on the authority of the great helmsman to write an assessment of Jevons’ contributions could, however, be tricky at Cambridge. In early 1901 John Neville Keynes completed a draft of an entry on Jevons for the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The published version argued that

While Keynes was clearly following Marshall’s reading of TPE, he received a sharp response when he sent a draft of the entry to his colleague Foxwell, who had met Jevons at Cambridge in the mid-1870s when they were both examiners in the Moral Sciences Tripos. Foxwell had probably been Jevons’ closest friend in the last years of his life and had also edited his Investigations in Currency and Finance (Jevons Reference Jevons and Foxwell1884). Responding to Keynes, Foxwell began by noting that he had rejected an offer to write the entry because he considered that it was “out of the question to attempt to give an adequate notice of such an important & original man … in two columns of the Encyclopaedia.” Nevertheless, the entry was “as good an estimate as was possible within the absurd limits of space assigned.” Foxwell’s “only important point of difference … is where, agreeing with Marshall, you say that Jevons’ principle of marginal utility is only of coordinate importance with the principle of cost of production. Many persons were astonished at Marshall’s position on this point when his Principles appeared.” For Foxwell, Jevons’ principle was the “universal” rule of value that was crucial for explaining the prices of irreproducible commodities, which were “of enormous importance in practice.” Indeed, Marshall’s “typical case of strict mutual determination [is] much more rarely reached than he assumes.”Footnote ⁹

Foxwell’s claim that “many persons were astonished at Marshall’s position” on Jevons was not evident in the early published reviews of, and responses to, the Principles. On the contrary, commentators such as Price (see above) fully endorsed the analysis. While Foxwell’s evident irritation was expressed at a time of tension with Marshall regarding his teaching,Footnote ¹⁰ it reflected a markedly different assessment of the relative merits of Ricardo and Mill as compared with Jevons. In that regard, Marshall displayed a consistent pattern in his published comments. While he was willing to praise Jevons’ statistical work, the marginalist theory of value and distribution published as TPE was a very different matter. Here, Marshall’s approach was one of denigration, a pattern set in his “rather peevish and condescending” review of TPE in 1872, where Jevons was “damned with faint praise” (Whitaker Reference Whitaker, Raffaelli, Becattini and Dardi2006, p. 574).Footnote ¹¹ An unsigned commentary published in 1874 also undermined the originality of Jevons’ analysis (Whitaker Reference Whitaker1995), although the most detailed critique of Jevons’ value theory appeared in the Principles. Accepted from the first by many economists, that depiction of TPE was, and remains, highly influential.

Marshall’s hostility can be traced, in part, to a series of analytical concerns.Footnote ¹² Patronizing references to Jevons’ mathematical ability were reinforced by Marshall’s inference that Jevons did not understand the twin roles of demand and supply in explaining prices. While there was alarm at Jevons’ erasure of equity considerations in TPE and elsewhere, Marshall was also incensed by Jevons’ attacks on Ricardo and Mill. This produced a marked personal edge to the commentary, as did Marshall’s claims that he had independently discovered the analytical approach that Jevons took to wages and, more importantly, that he had produced a marginal utility theory before reading TPE. Even if the available evidence does not support the latter claim, Marshall’s criticism was unrelenting. In an introduction to an appeal for a Jevons Memorial in 1883, he again praised Jevons’ statistical work while harping on the perceived negative aspects of TPE (Whitaker Reference Whitaker1996, 1, p. 164). With important analytical matters at stake, Marshall’s commentary was carping in tone and misleading in content.

By contrast, Jevons’ comments on Marshall’s work were consistently favorable. In the second edition of TPE published in Reference Fawcett1879, he referred to Marshall’s “ingenious [analysis of] mathematico–economic problems, expounded more geometrico” in The Pure Theory of Foreign Trade. The Pure Theory of Domestic Values, which had been privately printed by Sidgwick (Jevons Reference Fawcett1879, p. xlv). F.Y. Edgeworth recorded that Jevons had “highly praised the then recently published Economics of Industry” by Alfred and Mary Paley Marshall when it appeared in the same year (Pigou Reference Pigou1925, p. 66). A letter from Alfred Marshall to Jevons, written in early December Reference Fawcett1879, also indicates that Jevons had praised the book and informed Marshall that he had set the Economics as the “first textbook” for examinations at the Institute of Bankers in London (Whitaker Reference Whitaker1996, 1, p. 122). That Jevons was unfazed by Marshall’s critical review of TPE was consistent with his making no recorded response when (although he was not named directly) his formulation of value theory was criticized in the Economics of Industry (Marshall and Marshall Reference Fawcett1879, pp. 145, 148). Indeed, in The State in Relation to Labor, Jevons referred to the “ingenious” analysis of trades unions in the Marshalls’ text (Jevons 1882, p. 108; cf. Marshall and Marshall Reference Fawcett1879, pp. 206–207).

While the written record indicates a consistently favorable response, particularly with regard to the Economics of Industry, John Whitaker has suggested that Jevons was not completely honest with Marshall about the adoption of the book at the institute. Another letter, written to Foxwell, had indicated that Jevons was “less than flattering” on the matter (Whitaker Reference Whitaker1996, 1, p. 122n). If that was the case, Jevons’ recorded responses to the book exhibited a marked degree of disingenuity. I suggest in section V, however, that was not the case and that his comments were concerned instead with the difficult figure of Henry Dunning Macleod.

III. CAMBRIDGE WISEACRES

Jevons’ comment, to which Whitaker refers, appeared in an exchange of letters with Foxwell in November Reference Fawcett1879. Before considering that comment directly, it will be useful to explain the context of the letters that followed the publication of the second edition of TPE. This had produced some consternation at Cambridge for two reasons. The first was Jevons’ perceived claim for analytical priority in formulating a new theory of wages (Jevons Reference Fawcett1879, pp. xlvii–lvi; Black 1973–81, 5, p. 78). The second was that Jevons had added a series of remarks to TPE regarding the work of Macleod. The remarks were both cryptic and puzzling, reflecting Jevons’ difficulty in publicly commenting on Macleod’s work. On the one hand, he thought that Macleod deserved praise for some aspects of his work that had often been treated in a disparaging manner by other commentators. On the other hand, he strongly disagreed with a number of Macleod’s arguments. Jevons’ solution was to (guardedly) praise Macleod and to hint at some disagreement, thereby avoiding any direct criticism (White Reference White2003; Reference White2004).

Although Jevons’ attacks on authority were a source of continuing concern to Foxwell, Jevons appears to have been unmoved. In 1875, for example, he told Foxwell that “I have heard several other men connected with the London University speak like you as if the recognition of the Moral Sciences hung by a thread, so that they might be thrown over altogether in consequence of the least indiscretion. But I trust that the authorities of the universities are not quite so narrow minded” (Black Reference Black1973–81, 4, p. 116).Footnote ¹³ Foxwell, however, continued to urge caution in matters of “controversy.” Following the publication of Jevons’ Logic primer in the following year, he wrote, “I might perhaps object to the slightly controversial tone of certain paragraphs e.g. 100, 103, 104, 111. It seems to me a child ought not to be introduced to difference of opinion in an elementary book.”Footnote ¹⁴ If the passages to which Foxwell referred now appear innocuous, he was deeply alarmed following the publication of the second edition of TPE. Acting as mediator between Jevons and Cambridge, Foxwell urged Jevons to avoid using language that gave “much irritation ... to many men here. Very likely you don’t care; but I feel that the science suffers whenever there are unnecessary antagonisms and heated feelings braising the chief writers and teachers: and if I could do anything to reconcile them, I should feel it was perhaps worth while living to do so” (Black Reference Black1973–81, 5, p. 78). He thus attempted to smooth the ruffled Cambridge feathers and explained to Jevons how his remarks about analytical priority had generated the “irritation.”Footnote ¹⁵ Macleod, however, was a different matter.

As a graduate of Trinity College, Macleod had a longstanding interest in the possibility of teaching of political economy at the university. In January 1861 he wrote to his friend, the sometime political economist John Hill Burton, that Cambridge

Although it has not been possible to trace the lecture and any responses to it, Macleod had some basis for thinking that his analysis of credit and money was gaining ground at the time. In January 1860 he had written to J.E. Cairnes requesting some brief biographical information for his projected Dictionary of Political Economy (1863). Cairnes’ Character and Logical Method of Political Economy had included an angry appendix that attacked Macleod’s critique of J.S. Mill’s value theory (Cairnes Reference Cairnes1857, pp.173–177). Macleod informed Cairnes that he had just become aware of the critique and he enclosed a letter from Michel Chevalier, professor of political economy at the College de France, which announced that, as a result of Macleod’s work, the French economist “has found it necessary to modify his own opinions.” Cairnes’ response was brusque in refusing to supply any biographical details: “such services as I have rendered to political economy not being, as I believe of a kind that the public can be supposed to have the slightest interest in any information concerning me.” Moreover, he still considered that the “disrespectful tone” he had adopted in the Character with regard to Macleod was justified because of the “unwarrantable language which you had adopted towards present writers.” Nevertheless, Cairnes agreed with “much” of what Chevalier had said in his letter regarding Macleod’s Elements of Political Economy (1858): “I read that work with much instruction and, for the most part, also with pleasure. The analytical power of dealing with monetary phenomena, and the acquaintance with the history and mechanism of our monetary system, which it displays, are such as I think have seldom been equalled.”Footnote ¹⁷

It might well be suspected that Macleod’s use of “unwarrantable language” governed the reception of the paper he gave to Section F of the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting at Cambridge in 1862. The paper summarized Macleod’s credit theory of money, arguing that political economy should be presented in a mathematical form and that, in general, it should be made more like physics (Macleod Reference Macleod1862).Footnote ¹⁸ The Cambridge Chronicle reported that the paper had “excited some attention, because it had been publicly stated that M. Chevalier had expressed his entire concurrence with the views of Mr. Macleod.” This was a reference to a pamphlet, presumably the work of Macleod, which reprinted an article by Chevalier from the August issue of the Journal des Economistes. The pamphlet had particular pertinence for Cambridge as Chevalier’s Cours d’Economie Politique (1842–50) had been listed as recommended reading by the Board of Moral Sciences in 1860.Footnote ¹⁹

Given Cairnes’ remarks and “armed with M. Chevalier’s authority” (De Morgan Reference De Morgan1862), Macleod might have thought he would receive a favorable reception at Cambridge. If that was the case, he was deeply mistaken.Footnote ²⁰ Following the presentation of the paper, a

Henry Fawcett had apparently been vocal in that regard as Macleod subsequently told Foxwell that Fawcett had “jeered down” his paper “in the most insolent manner.”Footnote ²² The scorn was undiminished when Macleod’s understanding of mathematics was subsequently criticized and mocked in anonymous articles by Augustus de Morgan (Jevons’ mathematics lecturer at University College London) and Leslie Stephen.Footnote ²³

Thirteen years later, in 1875, Macleod wrote to Foxwell from the Oxford and Cambridge Club in Pall Mall. He asked Foxwell, as a member of the Board of Moral Sciences Studies, to support the placing of the two volumes of his Principles of Economical Philosophy on the board’s list of recommended reading in political economy (Macleod Reference Macleod1872; Reference Macleod1875). Two years before, “after considerable discussion,” the board had listed four texts as recommended reading: Fawcett’s Manual of Political Economy (1863); Cairnes’ Character and Logical Method; J.S. Mill’s Principles of Political Economy (Books I–III); and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (Books III–IV).Footnote ²⁴ It is relevant for what follows to note that Macleod had been an unsuccessful candidate when Fawcett was elected professor of political economy at the university in Reference Stephen1863, and, as was mentioned above, Cairnes’ book contained an angry attack on Macleod.

Foxwell’s reply to the 1875 request was, apparently, not encouraging.Footnote ²⁵ Macleod’s next letter recalled the treatment he had received at Cambridge in 1862. As far as Macleod was concerned, however, he had been vindicated because his analysis of credit and money had been endorsed by “the most eminent men in every country.” He referred Foxwell to the many testimonials to his work that were reprinted in his Principles, so that “you will see better on which side the weight of authority rests.” The Cambridge economists were “wonderful wiseacres” in that they “may as well run their heads against King’s College Chapel as against me.”Footnote ²⁶

Foxwell then informed Macleod that Fawcett was not his only problem at Cambridge. Marshall and Sidgwick were also disturbed by Macleod’s attack on Ricardo’s rent theory. Macleod had devoted a chapter in the first volume of his Principles of Economical Philosophy to restating his longstanding critique, characterizing Ricardo’s theory, in typically restrained fashion, as a “purely arbitrary and futile” analysis that could not be “received by any sane man.”Footnote ²⁷ Macleod had also discussed at some length in the Principles how his particular supply-and-demand analysis was based on his experiences in Scotland. That would explain his dismissive comment to Foxwell that the criticisms of Marshall and Sidgwick were irrelevant because they could not “ever possibly have had the practical experience of the subject I have had.” Foxwell had also apparently mentioned the critique of Macleod’s work in Cairnes’ Character and Logical Method. Here, Macleod retreated to the moral high ground: it was “little creditable to the University that such a book should be recommended containing as it does such a coarse attack on me.”Footnote ²⁸ Of course, it was all to no avail. Two years later, however, Macleod was a “recognized” lecturer, having successfully exploited the struggle between the reformers and conservatives in the university.

IV. RECOGNITION OF SORTS

Macleod’s recognition occurred in the context of the extensive debates, Royal Commissions, and government legislation regarding the reform of Oxford and Cambridge during the 1870s.Footnote ²⁹ In 1873 the third report of the Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction had “commented on the inadequacy of the stipends of many of the Professors of science, the need of developing the system of intercollegiate lectures, and the very large number of fellowships held by non-residents.” As this suggests, much of the debates at Cambridge concerned the relative power and financial relations between the university and the colleges. In early 1875 the Vice-Chancellor moved in the Senate for the appointment of a Syndicate that would enable the university to “enlarge and improve its system of education,” in part by extending the provision of intercollegiate lectures. The proposal met considerable opposition as it was considered to be the “thin end of the wedge” in the Syndicate’s “desire to subordinate the Colleges to the University” (Winstanley Reference Winstanley1947, pp. 265, 278, 284). Nevertheless, the reformers succeeded, and, in May 1877, the Senate agreed, inter alia, that

As a graduate of Trinity College, Macleod seized the moment and applied to the Moral Sciences board for recognition. At the board meeting that considered the issue, only five members were present so that, although Fawcett was absent, Sidgwick, Marshall, and Foxwell were in the majority. Making the best of the situation, the board resolved that, “without pledging themselves to any general principle of recognition,” all current applications, including Macleod’s, would be accepted. A fortnight later, Marshall was absent when Macleod attended a meeting of the board where it was confirmed that he would lecture three times a week on the “History of Economic Science” in the 1877 Michaelmas term.Footnote ³¹

Given the hostility to Macleod by the economists, it seems odd that the board recognized him as a lecturer. Three possible factors, however, can help explain the decision. The first is that no one was particularly clear as to the implications of the Senate decision and, hence, as to whether it could be, in effect, ignored. The second is that, because the board had no responsibility for the lecturer other than recognition, it might have been thought that Macleod would have difficulty in obtaining lecturing facilities. The third factor is that Macleod had an important ally on the Moral Sciences board. All three factors are suggested in correspondence between Macleod and the university Vice-Chancellor, Edward Atkinson. Shortly after his recognition, Macleod wrote to Atkinson, reminding him that when, with the help of Professor Birks, he had previously contacted the Vice-Chancellor because of “difficulties in the way of my having one of the public lecture rooms, you kindly interested yourself & obtained the permission of the Master & fellows of Trinity College for me to lecture in the College.”Footnote ³² The reference here was to Thomas Rawson Birks, Knightbridge professor of moral philosophy from 1872, president of the Moral Sciences board, who was sympathetic to Macleod and a thorn in the side of the political economists.Footnote ³³ If Macleod had an ally against the economists on the board, the Vice-Chancellor’s response suggested the confusion at the time from which Macleod had benefited. Atkinson noted that there was no significance in his helping to obtain the Trinity lecture room. He had only done so “under a mistaken notion of what I was bound to do.” Having now consulted the Council of the Senate, he had concluded that he had been under no obligation to provide a room, “it was not desirable for me to do so,” and the episode would not be repeated.Footnote ³⁴

If Macleod had some luck with the confusion at the time, Fawcett was furious at the decision of the Moral Sciences board. In September, J.N. Keynes reported that “Fawcett is very much annoyed at the recognition of Macleod by the Moral Sciences Board, & even talks of resigning his seat on the Board; but I hope he will think better of that. His influence and vote are I suppose generally on the right side contra Birks.”Footnote ³⁵ The minutes of a subsequent meeting indicate that Fawcett blamed Birks for his absence at the meeting where Macleod had been recognized. When Macleod’s appointment was discussed again at Fawcett’s initiative, it was resolved that, “for the future, important subjects for discussion were always … [to appear] on the notices of meetings.”Footnote ³⁶

Remarkably, albeit characteristically, Macleod then provided further ammunition for his enemies by failing to complete his lectures. Again, however, he was able to exploit the new regulations and the divisions on the Moral Sciences board. The university Syndicate had recommended that recognition of lecturers “shall continue in force until withdrawn by the Board, provided that the Lecturer deliver in each year at least one course of open Lectures approved by the Board. If this condition be not fulfilled the recognition shall become void, but again may be given on a fresh application.”Footnote ³⁷ When the Moral Sciences board met in May 1878, Birks was absent, due to illness. The minutes recorded that “a letter was read from Mr. Macleod” and a “provisional scheme of lectures” was drawn up for 1878–79. In a letter to Birks, written shortly after, Macleod apologized for not attending a meeting of lecturers recognized by the board and assured Birks that he would, in the following term, complete the course of lectures “I should have finished … only I was requested by some Banks to give a course of lectures on Credit & Banking” (cf. Macleod Reference Macleod1884, pp. 11–12). Birks forwarded the letter to FoxwellFootnote ³⁸ and Macleod remained as a lecturer for the 1878 Michaelmas term.Footnote ³⁹

Although his name was then erased from the list of recognized lecturers for the Reference Fawcett1879–80 academic year,Footnote ⁴⁰ Macleod was not finished with the board. In May,

This was not simply a stalling tactic, as the board confirmed in early June that the recommended texts would remain those of Cairnes, Fawcett, Mill, and Smith.Footnote ⁴² Macleod and his works had apparently been banished from economics at Cambridge. From Bristol, Marshall recorded his approval (Whitaker Reference Whitaker1996, 1, p. 109).

It was in that context that the second edition of Jevons’ TPE was published, with its carefully ambiguous praise for Macleod and the addition, in the concluding section on “The Noxious Influence of Authority,” of Macleod’s name to the list of heretics whose work had been unjustly neglected by the dominant “orthodox Ricardian school,” which included Mill and Fawcett (Jevons Reference Fawcett1879, pp. 298–300). Moreover, eager to debate his absolute and relative merits, Macleod was making forays to the Fens, where the list of recommended reading for the special examinations in political economy had not been settled at the Moral Sciences board.Footnote ⁴³ Foxwell, who had either chosen or been delegated to deal with Macleod, was far from pleased.

V. BANKING ON THE MARSHALLS

It has been suggested that Macleod’s failure to obtain a chair in political economy, despite repeated applications to a number of institutions, was due to the opprobrium that followed his being jailed as one of the directors of the Royal British Bank, which failed in 1856 (Taylor Reference Taylor2005, p. 248n). While it would not be surprising if that factor was important, the marked hostility that often greeted Macleod was also due to his dogmatic and repetitive writing style, vitriolic attacks on other economists such as Ricardo and Mill, abrasive personality, and vanity.Footnote ⁴⁴ It was the latter two matters that were foremost in a letter from Foxwell to Jevons, written in November Reference Fawcett1879. Macleod had again been pressing his case in Cambridge and he was unimpressed after Foxwell recommended that he read the second edition of TPE. In a letter written from Trinity College on November 6, he told Foxwell that “I have looked over Mr. Jevons’ book, and I find that he is exactly following in the path I struck out 24 years ago.”Footnote ⁴⁵ Six days later, Foxwell sarcastically reported to Jevons that Macleod “says your theory is substantially what he published 25 years ago, except that you carry mathematics too far, beyond the point at which it can be practically used !!! (This means beyond the point at which H.D.M. can follow you).” Foxwell also complained that the irascible Scotsman

Foxwell also referred to his own lecturing on the Marshalls’ Economics of Industry and noted that he “should very much like to know how far you would be satisfied to use it as a text-book” (ibid. p. 78). In his response, written two days later, Jevons noted that

It was Jevons’ reference to having “welcomed the book as getting me out of a difficulty in regard to the Bankers’ Institute Examinations” that, John Whitaker suggested, indicated he was “less than flattering” about the Economics of Industry (Whitaker Reference Whitaker1996, 1, p. 122n). That conclusion seems doubtful for three reasons. First, Jevons’ references to Marshall’s “scientific powers” and “careful revision” were far from disparaging. Second, the note of doubt in the letter was because Jevons had set the book on a “cursory reading” and was now concerned, following the remark in the Athenaeum, that the analysis was too similar to that of his bete noir, J.S. Mill. The worry, in other words, was due to his not having read the text “with due care” at that point. The third reason is that, while Jevons did not explain the basis of his “difficulty” at the institution, it is possible to identify a reason for it that was related to Macleod, rather than to any criticism of the Marshalls’ text.

When Macleod visited Foxwell at Cambridge, there had evidently been a disagreement, expressed in strong terms, as to Macleod’s analytical merits. Referring to that discussion in a letter to Foxwell written on November 17, Macleod defended his work. Responding to Foxwell’s report that mathematicians at St. Johns College were dismissive about his mathematical ability, Macleod retorted that, after he had sent a copy of his Economics for Beginners (1878) to James Clerk Maxwell, the physicist had informed Macleod that “so far as regarded my method of treating the subject we were `both in the same boat’ and that instead of treating Economics in the manner of Physics (as I have done) he treats Physics on the principle of bookkeeping (Economics).”Footnote ⁴⁸ Although it has not been possible to trace Maxwell’s letter, Macleod’s report is consistent with a number of remarks in Matter and Motion (1877), Maxwell’s introductory account of energy physics. Explaining his treatment of dynamics, Maxwell wrote:

Discussing energy, Maxwell also suggested that

Economic metaphors were not unusual in introductions to energy physics published in the 1870s, and Maxwell’s energy framework bore no relation to Macleod’s understanding of physics. Nevertheless, taken out of context, Maxwell’s comments could appear to gell with the analytical focus on exchange and the credit theory of money in Macleod’s work. The letter from Maxwell then provided Macleod with a neat counter to Foxwell’s argument from authority, as Maxwell held the chair of experimental physics, was director of experimental research at the Cavendish laboratory, and offered public lectures to students in the Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge. Although Macleod’s report does not indicate that Maxwell had commented on his mathematical ability, Macleod could triumphantly declare to Foxwell that Maxwell’s comments “may make some of your Johnian mathematicians rub their eyes.”Footnote ⁴⁹ Moreover, another endorsement was in the offing.

In late 1878 there was a crisis of confidence in the British banking system as deposits and the prices of bank shares fell following the collapse of the City of Glasgow bank. This was a catalyst, following years of negotiations, for the successful formation of the Institute of Bankers in early Reference Fawcett1879. A key function of the institute was to conduct examinations, which would provide formal qualifications for the employment and promotion of bank employees. After an extended debate regarding the content of the examinations, Jevons was appointed as examiner in political economy with his reading list to be finalized in mid-November (Green Reference Green1979, pp. 54–57).Footnote ⁵⁰ Macleod evidently thought, once more, that his time had arrived. On 17 November, he told Foxwell “matters will soon come to a crisis” and that the institute would “shortly” recommend “my works” for use in examinations.Footnote ⁵¹ This suggests that the basis for Jevons’ “difficulty”, to which he referred in his letter to Foxwell, can be traced to the attempts by Macleod to have his books set for the institute examinations. As with TPE, Jevons faced something of a dilemma. Although he did not wish to set Macleod’s work as the “first textbook,” he also wanted to avoid any direct conflict with Macleod by, for example, setting his own book on Money. Setting the Marshalls’ text would enable him to circumvent that difficulty.Footnote ⁵² It would also be consistent with his praise, recorded elsewhere, for the Economics of Industry.

VI. DENOUEMENT

Macleod’s absence from teaching in the Moral Sciences at Cambridge in Reference Fawcett1879–80 was only a temporary one. He was back for the next academic year, and, while not listed for every term, was a recognized lecturer, a position for which he evidently had to reapply on a number of occasions, until 1883–84.Footnote ⁵³ As might be expected, it was not a period without incident as Macleod tested the boundaries of the authority of the Moral Sciences board. One matter was of persistent concern, the background to which was that Macleod “had suffered severely from bank failures and afterwards was often in straitened circumstances” (Fryer and Maloney Reference Fryer and Maloney2004). He was thus dependent, in part, on income from his publications, and Macleod evidently thought he would have a wider and more receptive audience if he was declared a lecturer at the university. Soon after his recognition at Cambridge in 1877, Macleod wrote to the Vice-Chancellor. As his publisher was to release a new edition of one of his books, Macleod asked if he could identify himself on the title page as “Lecturer on Political Economy in the University of Cambridge”: “It has been a very disadvantageous thing to me that the Board of Moral Studies has long refused to recognize my work, though often … requested to do so: and of course it will be an advantage to me to let it be known that I am at least recognized by the University.” On this matter, however, Macleod’s luck had run out. Atkinson responded that, having consulted with “some members of the University in whose judgement I had confidence,” he had rejected Macleod’s application on the basis that it would be likely to “convey the impression” that Macleod had a “permanent office in the University to which you had been formally elected, which is not the case.”Footnote ⁵⁴

Macleod was prepared to wait. In Reference Fawcett1879, a full-page advertisement for his works was printed in the Cambridge Reporter, which described MacLeod as “Lecturer on Political Economy in the University of Cambridge” (Figure 1).Footnote ⁵⁵

Figure 1. Advertisement for H.D. Macleod’s publications.

Source: Cambridge University Reporter (20 May Reference Fawcett1879): 619.

There is no information available as to whether this episode had anything to do with Macleod’s departure from lecturing at Cambridge for the Reference Fawcett1879–80 year. In 1883, however, the issue re-emerged and this time there was a recorded reaction from the Moral Sciences board. The minutes for a November 1883 meeting recorded the board had resolved that

The target, however, was undeterred. The minutes of the first board meeting for 1884 were both exasperated and threatening:

Macleod was now vulnerable, particularly as he no longer had the protection of Birks.Footnote ⁵⁷ At the board meeting of 23 November 1883, it was recorded that, although Macleod had applied again for renewal of his recognition, “It was agreed to defer the consideration of it for the present.” Sidgwick, seconded by J.N. Keynes, then moved: “That the General Board [of Studies] be asked to consider whether it is desirable that the removal of the recognition of a lecturer by a Special Board should be refused on the ground that he has not given & is not likely to give any assistance in the teaching of the subject.”Footnote ⁵⁸

The “Special Board” here was evidently that for the Moral Sciences and it is clear why Macleod’s recognition had been stalled. Only five days later, however, the minutes of the next meeting of the Moral Sciences board reported, with almost palpable disappointment, that the General Board had declined to “lay down a definite rule on the matter” and Macleod was back as a recognized lecturer “during the current academical year.”Footnote ⁵⁹ While Macleod was subsequently threatened over publicly describing himself as a “Lecturer in the University of Cambridge” (see above), the board had another string to its bow. In May 1884, the minutes, signed by Sidgwick, noted that, “M^r. Macleod having applied to the Board for the renewal of his recognition as a lecturer, the Secretary was directed to ask him if any students had attended his lectures during the present academical year.” Less than a week later, the board met again: “Understanding that no students had attended M^r. Macleod’s lectures on Economics during the present academical year, the Board declined to renew their recognition of his lectures for the ensuing year.”Footnote ⁶⁰ In removing the burr under the Cambridge economics saddle, it is possible that the board held Macleod to a standard from which others were exempt. In November Reference Fawcett1879, a letter to the Cambridge Review had complained that, at Professor Fawcett’s previous Saturday lecture, the audience had “consisted of two undergraduates, two gentlemen apparently not members of the University, and a lady.”Footnote ⁶¹ Nevertheless, Macleod’s lack of a student audience was hardly a successful strike rate and it is difficult to escape the impression that his obtaining a lecturing position at Cambridge was driven in large part by the imprimatur that he thereby hoped to obtain for his publications.