Willis, Kirk. 1979. "The role in Parliament of the economic ideas of Adam Smith, 1776-1800. "History of Political Economy." Vol. 11, No. 4 (Summer): pp. 505-44.
510: "The eighteenth century debates are studded with references to the economic writings of John Locke, David Hume, Gregory King, Charles Davenant, Sir Josiah Child, Sir William Petty, Dean Josiah Tucker, and Arthur Young. Moreover, the number of citations of Smith is minute compared to these other writers. For instance, while there are slightly over forty references to Smith in the eighteenth-century debates, there are literally hundreds of citations of Arthur Young's great works. Indeed, Smith runs a poor ninth or tenth in comparison with many economic authorities."
Smith was respected as a philosopher, but was not considered to be important as an economist.
542: "It would not be until the generation of Canning (b. 1770), Liverpool (1770), Huskisson (1770), Brougham (1778), Robinson (1782), Palmerston (1784), Peel (1788), and Russell (1792) came to prominence that the ideas of political economy would achieve dominance in Parliament."
JKSCHW at aol.com wrote:
> If 1800 is the relevant date, then it's hard to know who would have been
> interested in Smith at Cambs in 1800. There was of course no economics or
> social science faculty. Smith was a teacher of jurisprudence, but law, apart
> from civil law, wasn't a university subject at Cambs or any Brit school till
> the 1960s (that's not a misprint). Smith would haver fit in best in
> philosophy, but Cambridge philosophy in 1800 was a pretty sleepy place to
> be--Russell, Moore, and Wittgenstein were several generations later.
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu