William Blake (economist)

He was born in London on 31 January 1774, the son of William and Alicia Blake. He was educated at Charterhouse School, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1789. He graduated B.A. in 1793 as 7th wrangler, became a Fellow of the college in 1795, and graduated M.A. in 1796.{{acad|BLK788W|Blake, William}} Giving up his fellowship in 1797, he entered Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar in 1799.[http://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/44324 Legacies of British Slave-ownership, William Blake 1774 – 1852.] Blake was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1807.[http://royalsociety.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqPos=4&dsqSearch=%28Surname%3D%27Blake%27%29 Royal Society Fellow details Blake; William (c 1774 – 1852).] He served as President of the Geological Society of London in 1815–6, which he had joined in 1812.[http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/~/link.aspx?_id=773BC90B-60F7-4355-B084-1414BC01C865&_z=z www.geolsoc.org.uk/, Past Presidents.]{{Cite book |url=https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1097146W/The_works_of_David_Ricardo |title=The works of David Ricardo | publisher=Open Library |last=Ricardo |first=David |language=en}} He became a member of the Royal Geographical Society in 1830.Clements Robert Markham, The Fifty Years' Work of the Royal Geographical Society (1881), p. 26;[https://archive.org/stream/fiftyyearsworkof00markiala#page/26/mode/2up archive.org.] He also belonged to the Political Economy Club, from 1831, and the King of Clubs dining club of Whigs.{{cite book|author=Shannon C. Stimson|title=After Adam Smith: A Century of Transformation in Politics and Political Economy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wwslbb5zX4YC&pg=PA183|access-date=16 May 2013|date=3 August 2009|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-15234-9|page=183}}{{cite book|author=Political Economy Club of London|title=Names of Members, 1821–1860, Rules of the Club and List of Questions Discussed ...|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yD4JAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA12|access-date=16 May 2013|year=1860|publisher=Political Economy Club|page=12}}{{Cite journal|last=Mason|first=Will E.|date=1956|title=The Stereotypes of Classical Transfer Theory|jstor=1826107|journal=Journal of Political Economy|volume=64|issue=6|pages=492–506|doi=10.1086/257862|s2cid=155085233}}

File:St John's Lodge Welwyn.jpg; the actual design was somewhat modified.]]

Blake leased St John's Lodge in Welwyn, Hertfordshire, with a park of 130 acres, from 1819. He purchased the property in 1824, changing the name to Danesbury.[http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=046-dex69&cid=0#0 The National Archives, Estate and family papers of the Blake family of Danesbury, Welwyn, 1776–1924.]{{cite book|author=Hugh C. Prince|title=Parks in Hertfordshire Since 1500|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mOYyyPCRbuYC&pg=PA171|access-date=16 May 2013|year=2008|publisher=University of Hertfordshire Press|isbn=978-0-9542189-9-7|page=171}} He was High Sheriff of Hertfordshire in 1836.{{cite book|title=Bulletins of State Intelligence|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=22IPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA48|access-date=15 May 2013|year=1836|page=48}} As a result of the Slave Compensation Act 1837, Blake was given £34,301 in compensation from the British government as the trustee of the estate of John Robley, his brother-in-law; Robley's estate included slaves in Tobago and Saint Kitts.{{cite web |title=William Blake|url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/44324|publisher=University College London}} Retrieved on 20 March 2019.

Blake was initially known as a bullionist, one of the monetary writers of the early 19th century.{{cite book|author=Denis Patrick O'Brien|title=The classical economists revisited|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LLJgO1oSFacC&pg=PA6|access-date=15 May 2013|year=2004|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-11939-7|page=6}} He published Observations on the Principles Which Regulate the Course of Exchange, and on the Present Depreciated Slate of the Currency (1810).{{cite book|author=Robert Watt|title=Bibliotheca Britannica, or a general index to British and foreign literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V_VEAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA120|access-date=15 May 2013|year=1824|publisher=Constable|page=120|author-link=Robert Watt (bibliographer)}} For half a century it was considered a leading authority on exchange rates.{{cite book|author1=William Warren Bartley|author2=Stephen Kresge|title=The trend of economic thinking: essays on Political Economistis and Economic History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EAlr4wV-8iYC&pg=PA205|access-date=16 May 2013|year=1991|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-03515-6|pages=205–6}} It made heavy reference to the writing of John Wheatley.{{Cite journal|last=Fetter|first=Frank Whitson|date=June 1942|title=The Life and Writings of John Wheatley|jstor=1829331|journal=Journal of Political Economy|volume=50|issue=3|pages=357–376|doi=10.1086/255877|s2cid=153901855}} Fossati has argued that the debates on money and bank credit for British parliamentary reports of 1804 and 1810 clarified the theory, at the hands of Wheatley and others, including in particular Blake and John Leslie Foster (with Walter Boyd, Lord King, and Henry Thornton).{{Cite journal|last=Guillebaud|first=C. W.|date=December 1950|title=Review of Ricerche sui Contributi Inglesi alla Teoría Della Moneta|jstor=2226727|journal=The Economic Journal|volume=60|issue=240|pages=805–806|doi=10.2307/2226727}} Joseph Lowe, who wrote many reviews of the pamphlet literature of the bullion debate, approved of Blake's content but complained he was verbose.{{cite book|author=Alexander Dick|title=Romanticism and the Gold Standard: Money, Literature, and Economic Debate in Britain 1790–1830|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PC4GFPy38kwC&pg=PT32|access-date=16 May 2013|date=12 April 2013|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=978-1-137-29293-3|pages=32–3}}

Blake's 1823 pamphlet on government expenditure, Observations on the Effects Produced by Government Expenditure during the Restriction of Cash Payments, caused a stir, however. It was a pioneer work of its period, and has been considered to have anticipated the transfer theory of Frank William Taussig.{{Cite journal|last=Corry|first=B. A.|date=1958|title=The Theory of the Economic Effects of Government Expenditure in English Classical Political Economy|jstor=2550692|journal=Economica|volume=25|issue=97|pages=34–48|doi=10.2307/2550692}} David Ricardo wrote a reply, and Blake a rejoinder.{{Cite journal|last=Stigler|first=George J.|date=September 1953|title=Sraffa's Ricardo|jstor=1812400|journal=The American Economic Review|volume=43|issue=4|pages=586–599}} Ricardo wrote notes on Blake that remained unpublished until 1951. Matters of definition still plagued discussion: Ricardo's idea of depreciation clouded, in Blake's view, the issues.{{Cite journal|last=Sayers|first=R. S.|authorlink=Richard Sidney Sayers|date=February 1953|title=Ricardo's Views on Monetary Questions|jstor=1884147|journal=The Quarterly Journal of Economics|volume=67|issue=1|pages=30–49|doi=10.2307/1884147}} In common with many contemporaries, Blake used balance of trade inconsistently or unclearly as a term.{{Cite journal|last=Fetter|first=Frank Whitson|date=August 1935|title=The Term "Favorable Balance of Trade"|jstor=1885402|journal=The Quarterly Journal of Economics|volume=49|issue=4|pages=621–645|doi=10.2307/1885402}}

Mark Blaug's view was that Blake had shown up "blind spots" in Ricardo's theory.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GiPB5iqyZxEC&pg=PA175|title=Ricardo's Macroeconomics: Money, Trade Cycles, and Growth|date=2 May 2005|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-84474-1|pages=175–|author=Timothy S. Davis|access-date=16 May 2013}} Ricardo wrote to his correspondent Hutches Trower that John Ramsay McCulloch hadn't managed to talk Blake out of his "newly published opinions";Letters of David Ricardo to Hutches Trower and Others, 1811–1823 (1899), pp. 205–6; [https://archive.org/stream/lettersdavidric00ricagoog#page/n232/mode/2up archive.org.] in fact, as he told McCulloch, Ricardo had seen the paper before publication, and concluded that Blake agreed more with him than he was aware of.{{Cite journal|last=Ricardo|first=David|date=1895|title=Letters of David Ricardo to John Ramsay McCulloch|jstor=2485869|journal=Publications of the American Economic Association|volume=10|issue=5/6|pages=1–182}} John Stuart Mill in reviewing the work denied the ability of governments to stimulate economic activity.{{Cite journal|last=Fetter|first=Frank W.|date=1962|title=Economic Articles in the Westminster Review and Their Authors, 1824-51|jstor=1828780|journal=Journal of Political Economy|volume=70|issue=6|pages=570–596|doi=10.1086/258717|s2cid=154477157}} Mill defended Say's law, while Blake was more in sympathy with the views of Robert Malthus on the economic depression of the early 1820s (though he added a disclaimer on not arguing in terms of public policy).{{cite book|author=Donald Winch|title=Riches and Poverty: An Intellectual History of Political Economy in Britain, 1750–1834|url=https://archive.org/details/richespovertyint0000winc|url-access=registration|access-date=15 May 2013|date=26 January 1996|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-55920-1|page=[https://archive.org/details/richespovertyint0000winc/page/365 365]}}{{cite book|title=Progress and Profits in British Economic Thought, 1650–1850|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u805AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA175|access-date=16 May 2013|year=1950|publisher=CUP Archive|page=175|id=GGKEY:4F2QWQK4DDW}} Mill in defending Ricardo interpreted the orthodox doctrine on the export of gold in a way that conceded its part in bilateral trade.{{Cite journal|last=Mason|first=Will E.|date=February 1957|title=Ricardo's Transfer-Mechanism Theory|jstor=1882298|journal=The Quarterly Journal of Economics|volume=71|issue=1|pages=107–115|doi=10.2307/1882298|hdl=10.2307/1882298|hdl-access=free}} He in fact used some of Blake's ideas in his later work Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy (1844), without attribution.{{cite book|author=Thomas Sowell|title=Classical Economics Reconsidered|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eYrEeWQWBFcC&pg=PA71|access-date=15 May 2013|year=1994|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-00358-0|page=71|author-link=Thomas Sowell}}

McCulloch later reprinted Blake's 1810 pamphlet, praising it in his introduction of 1857.{{cite book|author=John Ramsay McCulloch|title=A Select Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts and Other Publications, on Paper Currency and Banking: From the Originals of Hume, Wallace, Thornton, Ricardo, Blake, Huskisson, and Others ; with a Preface, Notes, and Index|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3Z9CAAAAIAAJ&pg=PR17|access-date=16 May 2013|year=1857|publisher=Lord Overstone|pages=17–}}

Blake married Mary Nash 25 July 1797 (bringing an end to his fellowship) and the estates of John Darker were settled on the couple. The death in 1822 of Edward Loveden Loveden of Buscot Park, who had married Mary's sister Anne, brought them an inheritance.[http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/loveden-edward-loveden-1751-1822 historyofparliamentonline.org, Loveden, Edward Loveden (?1751–1822), of Buscot Park, Berks.] They had three sons and five daughters. The sons were:

• William John Blake, politician;
• Frederic Rodolph Blake C.B, army officer;
• Henry Woolaston Blake, partner in Boulton & Watt.

The daughters were:

• Mary, who married Wilhelm, Baron (Freiherr) de Biel and resided at Zierow;{{cite book|title=Livre du Recteur de l'Académie de Genève : 1559–1878 (le)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Esh-ZhEPKfoC&pg=PA207|access-date=16 May 2013|year=1959|publisher=Librairie Droz|isbn=978-2-600-03193-6|page=207}}
• Ellen, who married John Alexander Hankey;
• Caroline, who married Henry Davidson;
• Emily, who married Christopher William Puller; and
• Frances (Fanny), unmarried; the fourth daughter, according to a memorial inscription.{{Cite web |url=http://www.welwyn.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=122&Itemid=141 |title=welwyn.org.uk, List of burials in Welwyn churchyard, memorials within the church and names found only on the 1906 record of memorials. Surnames starting A-C. |access-date=16 May 2013 |archive-date=4 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304130943/http://www.welwyn.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=122&Itemid=141 |url-status=dead }}

{{reflist|30em}}

• [http://www.hertfordshire-genealogy.co.uk/data/books/books-5/book-0501-welwyn-by-and-large.htm Extract from Welwyn, By and Large by William Branch Johnson (1967)]; history of Danesbury before it came into the Blake family
• [http://www.robley.org.uk/jrstoke.html John Robley of Bloomsbury and Tobago (1775–1822)], Blake's brother-in-law and cause of litigation

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Category:1774 births

Category:1852 deaths

Category:People educated at Charterhouse School

Category:English economists

Category:Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge

Category:Fellows of the Royal Society

Category:People from Welwyn

Category:Recipients of payments from the Slavery Abolition Act 1833

Category:Presidents of the Geological Society of London