James Wilson (economist)

Portrait of James Wilson

James Wilson (born June 3, 1805 in Hawick , † August 11, 1860 in Calcutta ) was a British entrepreneur , economist and politician who founded the weekly magazine The Economist and the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China . The latter merged with Standard Bank in 1969 and became what is now Standard Chartered .

Life

Wilson was born in the Scottish Borders . His wealthy father, William Wilson, owned a textile factory and his ancestors were local sheep farmers. He was the fourth of 15 children, 10 of whom reached adulthood. His family belonged to the Quaker religious community . After he almost became a lawyer and had previously turned down a career as a teacher, Wilson eventually studied economics. Wilson moved to London with his older brother William at the age of 19 . The brothers started a factory called Wilson, Irwin & Wilson. After an economic crisis, he sold most of his property in 1839, avoiding bankruptcy.

He has written for various newspapers, including the Manchester Guardian , and published papers with economic policy content. In these he spoke out in favor of the abolition of the Corn Laws , with which local agriculture was protected through high import duties and import bans on grain . In 1843 he founded The Economist and was its editor-in-chief for 16 years. The aim of this foundation was to promote free trade and the abolition of the Corn Laws and to convey liberal economic positions to the public. The Economist is still published today with a worldwide weekly circulation of over 1.5 million copies.

Wilson was elected in 1847 as a member of the Whigs for the Westbury constituency in the House of Commons , of which he was a member until 1859; from 1857 he represented the constituency of Devonport there . Because of his economic competencies, Prime Minister Lord John Russell appointed him Secretary of the Control Council (which ran the affairs of India ) in 1848 , a position he held until the change of government in 1852. He was then Finance Secretary of the Treasury between 1853 and 1858. Between June and August 1859 he was briefly General Paymaster and Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce and was appointed to the Privy Council in the same year .

In August 1859, Wilson resigned these offices and his seat in parliament to serve as the financial expert in the Council of India, which controlled colonial policy in India. On behalf of Queen Victoria , he went to India to establish a new tax structure and a new paper currency and to reshape the Indian financial system after the uprising of 1857 . He died of dysentery in Calcutta in 1960 after only one year in this office at the age of 55 , after having founded the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China a year earlier.

family

Wilson married Elizabeth Preston of Newcastle upon Tyne in January 1832 . They had six daughters, of which Eliza, the eldest, married Walter Bagehot .

Web links

Commons : James Wilson  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Thomas Thomson: A Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen . Blackie and son, 1870 ( google.de [accessed September 9, 2019]).
2. ^ University of California Libraries: Influences of the corn laws, as affecting all classes of the community, and particularly the landed interests . London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1840 ( archive.org [accessed September 9, 2019]).
3. ↑ Thomas Straubhaar: Economy: Far from reality and blind to change . April 19, 2018 ( welt.de [accessed September 9, 2019]).
4. ↑ Dominic Ponsford Twitter: The Economist boasts 1.5m magazine circulation and 36m social media followers. In: Press Gazette. November 30, 1, accessed September 14, 2019 (American English). 

predecessor	Office	successor
George Alexander Hamilton	Financial Secretary to the Treasury 1853-1858	George Alexander Hamilton
Algernon Percy	Paymaster General 1859	William Cowper-Temple