Joseph Shield Nicholson

Nicholson was born in Wrawby in Lincolnshire on 9 November 1850 the only son of Mary Anne Grant and her husband Rev Thomas Nicholson, minister of Banbury. He was educated at Lewisham School in London.{{cite book|title=Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783 – 2002|date=July 2006|publisher=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|isbn=0-902-198-84-X|url=https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp2.pdf|access-date=1 November 2017|archive-date=4 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304074135/https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp2.pdf|url-status=dead}}

Nicholson studied Logic and Metaphysics at King's College London and the University of Edinburgh, then studied Moral Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and Heidelberg University. He was a private tutor at Cambridge from 1876 to 1880 coming to fame in 1877 when he won the Cambridge Cobden Club prize for his essay "The Effects of Machinery on Wages".{{cite web|url=http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100233724|title=Joseph Shield Nicholson - oi|website=oxfordindex.oup.com|access-date=12 February 2018|archive-date=7 November 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107025514/http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100233724|url-status=dead}}

In 1880 he became Professor of political economy at the University of Edinburgh. At this time he lived at 15 Jordan Lane in Morningside.Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1885 He was the first President of the Scottish Society of Economists, serving from its creation in 1897 until 1903.{{cite book|last=Hutton|first=Alan|title=The history of Scottish economic thought|year=2006|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=0415344379|pages=237–238|editor=Alexander Dow, Sheila Dow|chapter=A Scottish tradition of applied economics in the twentieth century}}

In 1884 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were George Chrystal, Alexander Crum Brown, Alexander Buchan and Peter Guthrie Tait.{{cite book|title=Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783 – 2002|date=July 2006|publisher=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|isbn=0-902-198-84-X|url=https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp2.pdf|access-date=1 November 2017|archive-date=4 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304074135/https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp2.pdf|url-status=dead}}

in 1918, he was awarded the Guy Medal in Silver by the Royal Statistical Society.

In later life he lived at 3 Belford Park near Dean Village in Edinburgh.Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1910–11

In 1925, Nicholson resigned his chair due to ill health and died in Edinburgh on 12 May 1927.W. R. Scott, "Nicholson, Joseph Shield (1850–1927)", rev. John Maloney, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, UK: OUP, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/35229 Retrieved 8 August 2016] He is buried with his wife, Jane (Jeannie) Walmsley Hodgson, in the 20th-century extension to Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh, in the central section.

Nicholson's writings represent a compromise between the methods of the historical school of German economics and those of the English deductive school. In his principal work, Principles of Political Economy (three volumes, 1893–1901), he closely follows John Stuart Mill in his selection of material,{{Cite journal |last=Hadley |first=Arthur T. |date=1894 |title=Principles of Political Economy . J. Shield Nicholson |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/250238 |journal=Journal of Political Economy |language=en |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=477–478 |doi=10.1086/250238 |issn=0022-3808}} but employs statistical and historical discussion, instead of the abstract reasoning from simple assumption that characterises Mill's work.

{{columns-list|colwidth=30em|

Among his other writings are:

• Effects of Machinery on Wages (1878)
• Tenant's Gain not Landlord's Loss (1883)
• The Silver Question (1886)
• [https://archive.org/details/revivalofmarxism00nichuoft The Revival of Marxism (1920)], final book.{{cite web|last1=Groenewegen|first1=Peter|title=Joseph Shield Nicholson (1850-1927): An early student of Marshall at Cambridge, later quite critical of Marshall and his Economics|url=http://www.hetsa.org.au/hetsa2010/pdf/groenewegen.pdf|website=History of Economic Thought Society of Australia|access-date=30 August 2015}}
• Money and Monetary Problems (1888)
• [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000963634 Historical Progress and Ideal Socialism (1894)]
• Strikes and Social Problems (1896)
• Elements of Political Economy (1903)
• History of the English Corn Laws (1904)
• Rates and Taxes (1905)
• Rents, Wages, and Profits in Agriculture and Rural Depopulation (1906)
• [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001122233 A Project of Empire (1909)]{{cite journal|last1=Meredith|first1=H. O.|title=Review of A Project of Empire by J. Shield Nicholson|journal=The Economic Journal|volume=20|issue=77|year=1910|pages=46–50|issn=0013-0133|doi=10.2307/2220580|jstor=2220580|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924054859966&view=1up&seq=66}}
• Tales from Ariosto (1913)
• Life and Genius of Ariosto (1914)
• [https://archive.org/details/warfinance00nichuoft War finance (1917)]

Nicholson also wrote three romances:

• A Dreamer of Dreams (1889)
• Thoth (1888)
• Toxar (1890)W. R. Scott: ‘Nicholson, Joseph Shield... In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: OUP, 2004). [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/35229 Retrieved 9 November 2010. Subscription required.]

}}

{{Reflist}}

{{wikisource author}}

• {{Gutenberg author|id=49113}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Joseph Shield Nicholson}}
• {{Librivox author |id=14792}}
• [http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/person.asp?LinkID=mp10940 Portraits of Nicholson (National Portrait Gallery, England)]
• [http://www.victorianweb.org/sculpture/bates/15.html William Augustus Guy medal]
• [http://sydney.edu.au/business/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/71421/Groenewegen.pdf John Shield Nicholson - The University of Sydney]
• {{NIE}}

{{Guy Medal}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nicholson, Joseph Shield}}

Category:English economists

Category:1850 births

Category:1927 deaths

Category:Alumni of King's College London

Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh

Category:Academics of the University of Edinburgh

Category:Fellows of the British Academy