James Bonar (civil servant)
{{Short description|Scottish economist (1852–1941)}}
{{Use British English|date=May 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2020}}
{{Infobox economist
| school_tradition = History of Economic Thought; Austrian School" Apart from his special interest in Adam Smith, Malthus and David Ricardo, James Bonar main service to his generation is the exposition of the ideas of the Austrian School of Carl Menger, Böhm-Bawerk, and Friedrich von Wieser, when, 30 years ago, few British economist could read German." {{cite journal |title = Dr. James Bonar: Philosopher and Economist |journal= The Times |date= 20 January 1941 |page= 7}}
| image =
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| name = James Bonar
| birth_date = 27 September 1852
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| death_date = 18 January 1941 (aged 88)
| death_place =
| nationality = Scottish
| field =
| influences =
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| contributions =
| education = University of Glasgow
Balliol College, Oxford
}}
James Bonar (27 September 1852 – 18 January 1941) was a Scottish civil servant, political economist and historian of economic thought.{{cite magazine|title=BONAR, James|magazine=Who's Who|year=1907|volume= 59|page=179|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yEcuAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA179}}{{cite book |author= |title= Who's Who, 1932: An Annual Biographical Dictionary with which is Incorporated "Men and Women of The Time" |place= London and New York |publisher= A & C Black Limited and The Macmillan Company |year= 1932 |url=https://archive.org/details/whoswho1932annua00lond/page/n9/mode/2up?view=theater |edition= 84 |url-access= registration |page= [https://archive.org/details/whoswho1932annua00lond/page/317/mode/2up?view=theater 317] |via= Internet Archive}}
Biography
He was born in Perth.{{cite book |title= Who's Who in Economics: A Biographical Dictionary of Major Economists 1700-1986 |chapter= Bonar, James |editor= Blaug, Mark |editor-link= Mark Blaug |edition= 2nd |place= |year= 1986 |publisher= Wheatsheaf Books Limited |url=https://archive.org/details/whoswhoineconomi0000unse_e8w6/page/n5/mode/2up |url-access= registration |page= [https://archive.org/details/whoswhoineconomi0000unse_e8w6/page/102/mode/2up?view=theater 102] |isbn= 978-0-7450-0230-9 |via= Internet Archive}} He was brought up, from the age of four, in Glasgow where his father was a Church of Scotland Minister. This clerical background extends to two uncles, both ministers who 'came out' in the disruption of 1843, both later serving terms as Moderator of the Free Church General Assembly. From Glasgow Academy Bonar graduated MA in Mental Philosophy from Glasgow University in 1874. He followed the same lengthy undergraduate career that Adam Smith pursued more than a century before gaining a Snell Exhibition to Balliol College, Oxford from which he graduated with a first in 1877.
A major early influence was the moral philosopher, Edward Caird: first as Professor at Glasgow and then as Master of Balliol. Together with his family background that influence helps explain Bonar's decision to spend the next three years teaching economics in the newly established University Extension Movement in the East End of London. In 1881 he began a career in the civil service only retiring (to live in Hampstead) from his final position, as Deputy Manager of the Ottawa branch of the Royal mint, in 1919 at the age of 67.
In 1886, with J. H. Muirhead and others, Bonar was instrumental in establishing the London Ethical Society, the first ethical society in the UK.{{Cite web|title=UCL Bloomsbury Project|url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bloomsbury-project/institutions/london_ethical_society.htm|access-date=2020-12-08|website=ucl.ac.uk}} Although the LES became the London School of Ethics and Philosophy in 1897 (which was later absorbed in the London School of Economics), it was the first of a growing number of ethical societies which prompted the formation of the Union of Ethical Societies in 1896, known today as Humanists UK.
He was awarded an LLD from Glasgow University in 1887, and an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University in 1935.
Major publications
- [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100382218 Parson Malthus], 1881.
- [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001888136 Malthus and his Work], 1885.
- [http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015002402082 Letters of David Ricardo to Thomas Robert Malthus: 1810–1823] (ed.), 1887.{{cite journal|title=Review of Letters of David Ricardo to Thomas Robert Malthus ed. by James Bonar|journal=Science|date=30 March 1888|volume=XI|issue=269|page=156|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31822020652350;view=1up;seq=174}}{{cite journal|title=Ricardo's Letters to Malthus, edited by Bonar. Note|journal=The Quarterly Journal of Economics |year=1887–1888|volume=II|page=65|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015059388457;view=1up;seq=85}}
- [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000099948196;view=1up;seq=19 "Austrian economists and their view of value"], 1888, QJE
- {{cite journal|year=1891|title=The value of labor in relation to economic theory|journal=The Quarterly Journal of Economics|volume=5|issue=2|pages=137–164|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000099948212;view=1up;seq=155|doi=10.2307/1882969|jstor=1882969|last1=Bonar|first1=James}}
- [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001379387 Philosophy and Political Economy], 1893 ([https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007937240 3rd ed. 1922]; 4th ed. 1927)
- [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007703088 'А Catalogue of Adam Smith's Library''], 1894.
- {{cite journal|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015059386261;view=1up;seq=220|title=The Centenary of Malthus|journal=The Economic Journal|year=1898|volume=8|issue=30|pages=206–208|doi=10.2307/2957360|jstor=2957360|last1=Bonar|first1=J}}
- [http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015002402298 Letters of David Ricardo to Hutches Trower and Others: 1811–1823] (with J.H. Hollander), 1899.
- [http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015008962196 Disturbing Elements in the Study and Teaching of Political Economy], 1911.
- [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015059386352;view=1up;seq=61 "Knapp's theory of money"], 1922, EJ
- [https://books.google.com/books?id=--Uf_lcwIrQC&pg=PA25 Ricardo's Ingot Plan], 1923, EJ
- "Memories of F.Y. Edgeworth", 1926, EJ
- {{cite book |title= The Tables Turned. A Lecture and Dialogue on Adam Smith and the Classical Economists |year= 1931 |place= London |publisher= Macmillan & Company |url= https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.76168/page/n5/mode/2up |accessdate= 10 September 2023}}
- "Ricardo on Malthus", 1929, EJ
- [https://books.google.com/books/about/Theories_of_Population_from_Raleigh_to_A.html?id=LH-rAgAAQBAJ Theories of Population from Raleigh to Arthur Young], 1931
Notes
{{Reflist|30em}}
References
- {{cite journal |title = Dr. James Bonar: Philosopher and Economist |journal= The Times |date= 20 January 1941 |page= 7}}
- {{cite journal |author= Shirras, G. F. |author-link= George Findlay Shirras |title= 'Obituary: James Bonar' |journal= Economic Journal |volume= 51 |date= April 1941 |pages =145–56 |doi= 10.1093/ej/51.201.145 |jstor= 2225667}}
- "Bonar, James" in The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, Eatwell, Milgate, Newman (eds.), 1987.
- "Bonar, James" in Rutherford D (ed.) The Biographical Dictionary of British Economists' vol.1, Theommes Continuum, 2004,pp. 123–4.
External links
- {{Wikisource author-inline}}
- {{Gutenberg author | id=Bonar,+James | name=James Bonar}}
- {{FadedPage|id=Bonar, James|name=James Bonar|author=yes}}
- {{Internet Archive author |sname=James Bonar |birth=1852 |death=1941}}
- {{NPG name}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonar, James}}
Category:19th-century British economists
Category:19th-century Scottish historians
Category:20th-century British economists
Category:Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
Category:Alumni of the University of Glasgow
Category:Historians of economic thought
Category:People educated at the Glasgow Academy
Category:Writers from Perth, Scotland
Category:Royal Canadian Mint presidents