89-562: Sir William Petty FRS (26 May 1623 – 16 December 1687) was an English economist, physician, scientist and philosopher. He first became prominent serving Oliver Cromwell and the Commonwealth in Ireland . He developed efficient methods to survey the land that was to be confiscated and given to Cromwell's soldiers. He also remained a significant figure under King Charles II and King James II , as did many others who had served Cromwell. Petty
178-537: A cabin boy . His readiness to provide caricatures of fellow crew members won him few friends. He also learnt of his defective sight when he failed to spot a landmark he had been told to look for. The captain, who had by this time seen the landmark from the deck for himself " drubbed him with a cord ". He was subsequently set ashore in Normandy after breaking his leg on board. After this setback, he applied in Latin to study with
267-735: A Chair (all of whom are Fellows of the Royal Society ). Members of the 10 Sectional Committees change every three years to mitigate in-group bias . Each Sectional Committee covers different specialist areas including: New Fellows are admitted to the Society at a formal admissions day ceremony held annually in July, when they sign the Charter Book and the Obligation which reads: "We who have hereunto subscribed, do hereby promise, that we will endeavour to promote
356-620: A Cromwellian supporter, he ran successfully for Parliament in 1659 for West Looe . Petty gained possession of the three baronies of Iveragh , Glanarought and Dunkerron in County Kerry . He soon became a projector , developing extensive plans for an ironworks and a fishery on his substantial estates in Kerry. Although he had great expectations of his application of his scientific methods to improvement, little came of these. He began by applying his political arithmetic to his own estates, surveying
445-461: A double-writing instrument with little success in sales. After his brother died, he approached his cousin, John Petty, offering to set him up in business on the understanding that John would be a trusted friend and help him in his chemistry and anatomy work. After the Third Siege of Oxford had resulted in the garrison surrendering to the parliamentarians on 24 June 1646, Petty arrived in the town and
534-472: A matter of good fortune. Petty was a music professor before being apprenticed to the brilliant Thomas Hobbes . He arrived upon his laissez-faire view of economics at a time of great opportunity and growth in the expanding British Empire. Laissez-faire policies stood in direct contrast to his supervisor Hobbes's Social Contract , developed from Hobbes's experiences during the greatest depression in England's history,
623-472: A nation needed to drive its trade. Hence it was possible to have too little money circulating in an economy, which would mean that people would have to rely on barter . It would also be possible for there to be too much money in an economy. But the topical question was, as he asks in chapter 3 of Verbum Sapienti , would £6m be enough to drive a nation's trade, especially if the King wanted to raise additional funds for
712-666: A new subject that he named "political arithmetic". Petty thus carved a niche for himself as the first dedicated economic scientist, amidst the merchant-pamphleteers, such as Thomas Mun or Josiah Child , and philosopher-scientists occasionally discussing economics, such as John Locke . He was indeed writing before the true development of political economy . As such, many of his claims for precision are of imperfect quality. Nonetheless, Petty wrote three main works on economics, Treatise of Taxes and Contributions (written in 1662), Verbum Sapienti (1665) and Quantulumcunque Concerning Money (1682). These works, which received great attention in
801-582: A result of the re-distribution, approximately 7,500 New Model Army veterans settled in Ireland, in what became known as the Cromwellian Plantation . In the 1650s, Petty was charged with fraud in the survey, by several members of Parliament, particularly Sir H. Sankey – illustrating that this survey involved fortunes for speculators and creditors of the Cromwell government. The allocations of land to Petty by
890-558: A scale of 1:251.43. This land survey method was used widely in rural Ireland up to the nineteenth century and sorting out the precise details was left usually to the legal profession. As a result, the Down Survey is considered to be about 87% accurate. Profitable and unprofitable land were distinguished, and there were abbreviated captions for arable , meadow , bog , woodland , mountain and several kinds of pasture , with area figures for each of these categories. Coverage of other subjects
979-424: A total wealth for England in the 1660s of £667m. Petty's only statistical technique is the use of simple averages. He would not be a statistician by today's standards but during his time a statistician was merely one that employed the use of quantitative data . Because obtaining census data was difficult, if not impossible, especially for Ireland, he applied methods of estimation . The way in which he would estimate
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#17328552599051068-453: A worldview that believed in a harmonious natural world. They both saw the benefits of specialisation and the division of labour . Smith said nothing about Petty in The Wealth of Nations . In his published writings, there is nothing apart from a reference in a letter to Lord Shelburne , one of Petty's aristocratic descendants. Karl Marx imitated Petty's belief that the total effort put in by
1157-401: Is Land and Labour" (p. 44). Both of these would be prime sources of taxable income . Like Richard Cantillon after him, he sought to devise some equation or par between the "mother and father" of output, land and labour, and to express value accordingly. He still included general productivity , one's "art and industry". He applied his theory of value to rent. The natural rent of a land was
1246-725: Is confirmed by the Council in April, and a secret ballot of Fellows is held at a meeting in May. A candidate is elected if they secure two-thirds of votes of those Fellows voting. An indicative allocation of 18 Fellowships can be allocated to candidates from Physical Sciences and Biological Sciences; and up to 10 from Applied Sciences, Human Sciences and Joint Physical and Biological Sciences. A further maximum of six can be 'Honorary', 'General' or 'Royal' Fellows. Nominations for Fellowship are peer reviewed by Sectional Committees, each with at least 12 members and
1335-437: Is derived. As mentioned earlier, the motif of medicine was also useful to Petty, and he warned against over-interference by the government in the economy, seeing it as analogous to a physician tampering excessively with his patient. He applied this to monopolies, controls on the exportation of money and on the trade of commodities. They were, to him, vain and harmful to a nation. He recognised the price effects of monopolies, citing
1424-489: Is his intellectual rigour, which put him far ahead of the mercantilist writers of earlier in the century. The use of biological analogies to illustrate his point, a trend continued by the physiocrats in France early in the 18th century, was also unusual. On value, Petty continued the debate begun by Aristotle , and chose to develop an input-based theory of value: "all things ought to be valued by two natural Denominations, which
1513-452: Is mirrored in his consideration of Petty's analysis, testified for by countless quotations in his major work Das Kapital . John Maynard Keynes demonstrated how governments could manage aggregate demand to stimulate output and employment, much as Petty had done with simpler examples in the 17th century. Petty's simple £100-through-100-hands multiplier was refined by Keynes and incorporated into his model. Some consider Petty's achievements
1602-421: Is nominated by two Fellows of the Royal Society (a proposer and a seconder), who sign a certificate of proposal. Previously, nominations required at least five fellows to support each nomination by the proposer, which was criticised for supposedly establishing an old boy network and elitist gentlemen's club . The certificate of election (see for example ) includes a statement of the principal grounds on which
1691-735: Is surprising, and they continue to be referred to as trustworthy evidence in courts of law even at the present day. Copies of a number of the parish maps survive in various institutions. The National Library of Ireland holds a set of Down Survey parish maps copied by Daniel O'Brien in the 1780s and purchased in the 1960s from a firm of Dublin solicitors. These maps cover land in counties Cork , Dublin, East Meath ( Meath ), King's County ( Offaly ), Leitrim , Limerick , Longford , Queen's County ( Laois ), Kilkenny , Tipperary , Waterford , Westmeath , Wexford and Wicklow . In some cases, summary barony maps have been included, though these barony maps are not necessarily fully comprehensive. Some copies of
1780-842: The Jesuits in Caen , supporting himself by teaching English. After a year, he returned to England, and had by now a thorough knowledge of Latin, Greek , French, mathematics, and astronomy. After an uneventful period in the Navy, Petty left to study in Holland in 1643, where he developed an interest in anatomy. Through an English professor in Amsterdam , he became the personal secretary to Thomas Hobbes , allowing him contact with René Descartes , Pierre Gassendi , and Marin Mersenne . In 1646, he returned to England and developed
1869-556: The Kenmare area, in southwest Ireland, and £9,000. This was described in Aubrey's Biography of Petty as "50,000 acres [200 km ] visible from Mount Mangorton ". By 1658, when Cromwell died, Petty owned so much Irish land that he essentially owned what is now County Kerry and held the title Earl of Landsdowne , Landsdowne being a new British name for Kerry. The English gentleman, Evelyn , who knew Petty well, spoke of him: The resulting maps of
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#17328552599051958-426: The post-nominal letters FRS . Every year, fellows elect up to ten new foreign members. Like fellows, foreign members are elected for life through peer review on the basis of excellence in science. As of 2016 , there are around 165 foreign members, who are entitled to use the post-nominal ForMemRS . Honorary Fellowship is an honorary academic title awarded to candidates who have given distinguished service to
2047-549: The 1690s, show his theories on major areas of what would later become economics. What follows is an analysis of his most important theories, those on fiscal contributions, national wealth, the money supply and circulation velocity, value, the interest rate, international trade and government investment. Many of his economic writings were collected by Charles Henry Hull in 1899 in The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty . Hull, in his scholarly article ' Petty's Place in
2136-514: The French king's salt monopoly as an example. In another work, Political Arithmetic , Petty also recognised the importance of economies of scale. He described the phenomenon of the division of labour, asserting that a good is both of better quality and cheaper, if many work on it. Petty said that the gain is greater "as the manufacture itself is greater". On the efflux of specie , Petty thought it vain to try to control it, and dangerous, as it would leave
2225-514: The General Crisis . In 1858 Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne , one of Petty's descendants, erected a memorial and likeness of Petty in Romsey Abbey . The text on it reads: "A true patriot and a sound philosopher who, by his powerful intellect, his scientific works and indefatigable industry, became a benefactor to his family and an ornament to his country". A monumental slab on
2314-476: The History of Economic Theory ' (1900) proposed a division of the economic writings of Petty in three (or four) groups: The division given here was still used by scholars at the end of the twentieth century. By Petty's time, England was engaged in war with Holland, and in the first three chapters of Treatise of Taxes and Contributions , Petty sought to establish principles of taxation and public expenditure, to which
2403-456: The Irish armies, on a leave of absence from his position as Professor of Anatomy at Brasenose College, Oxford offered to undertake a new survey which would be concluded quickly – within thirteen months, more cheaply than the surveyor-general's proposals, and with a general map of the country. The Government signed a contract with Petty on 24 December 1654. The survey employed about a thousand men and
2492-410: The Irish survey pursued Petty for a number of years. In 1659, Petty published a pamphlet , Proceedings between Sankey and Petty , in which he tried to refute the allegations of fraud by Sankey. This pamphlet was followed, in 1660, by an essay, Reflections upon some persons and things in Ireland , where he explained that he had defected from the ranks of scientists to do the survey "to demonstrate to
2581-527: The Irish. The survey was apparently called the "Down Survey" by Petty, either because the results were set down in maps or because the surveyors made use of Gunther's chain , which had to be "laid down" with every measure. At the time of its creation, it was considered one of the most accurate maps, and the first British imperial survey of an entire conquered nation. In August 1649, the New Model Army , led by Oliver Cromwell , went to Ireland to re-occupy
2670-587: The Parliament was unable to pay in full. Lands were also to be provided to a third group, settlers from England and America. The dispossessed landholders were to be transported to Connacht and to some counties in other provinces. To facilitate the re-distribution, an accurate survey of the lands was required. Benjamin Worsley , the Surveyor General , had made a survey in 1653. Petty challenged Worsley's direction of
2759-502: The Parliament's creditors could reclaim their debts by receiving confiscated land in Ireland. The Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652 provided for the confiscation and re-distribution of the lands of the defeated Irish, mostly Confederate Catholics , who had opposed Cromwell and supported the royalists . Parliamentarian soldiers who served in Ireland were entitled to an allotment of confiscated land there, in lieu of their wages, which
William Petty - Misplaced Pages Continue
2848-439: The Royal Society has been described by The Guardian as "the equivalent of a lifetime achievement Oscar " with several institutions celebrating their announcement each year. Up to 60 new Fellows (FRS), honorary (HonFRS) and foreign members (ForMemRS) are elected annually in late April or early May, from a pool of around 700 proposed candidates each year. New Fellows can only be nominated by existing Fellows for one of
2937-500: The Shelburne title passed by a special remainder to Anne's son John Petty, 1st Earl of Shelburne , who took his mother's surname, and whose descendants hold the title Marquis of Lansdowne . Her grandson William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne , praised her as a woman of strong character and intelligence, the only person who could manage her bad-tempered and tyrannical husband. Two men crucially influenced Petty's economic theories. The first
3026-655: The Society, we shall be free from this Obligation for the future". Since 2014, portraits of Fellows at the admissions ceremony have been published without copyright restrictions in Wikimedia Commons under a more permissive Creative Commons license which allows wider re-use. In addition to the main fellowships of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS & HonFRS), other fellowships are available which are applied for by individuals, rather than through election. These fellowships are research grant awards and holders are known as Royal Society Research Fellows . In addition to
3115-412: The aggregate of ordinary workers represented a far greater contribution to the economy than contemporary ideas recognised. This belief led Petty to conclude that labour ranked as the greatest source of wealth. By contrast, Marx's conclusions were that surplus labour was the source of all profit , and that the labourer was alienated from his surplus and thus from society. Marx's high esteem of Adam Smith
3204-492: The army in lieu of payment were alleged to be over-stated. His work in allocating the lands also made him open to attack and bribery by those seeking allocation of the limited lands. Following investigations, he was acquitted, but a dissenting report accused him of magnifying the debt due to him by the army, of charging the army with debts not really due by them, and of reserving for himself portions of choice lands. Although never convicted of mis-appropriation, charges related to
3293-464: The army, set at £3,181 which was still due in February 1657. In payment of this debt, 9,665 acres (39 km ) of land were allotted to him. Petty also took a prominent share of the subsequent commissioners' work of evaluating and allotting the lands among the claimants, for which he was compensated by assigning him 6,000 acres (24 km ) of land, and permission to buy £2,000 worth of debentures . As
3382-469: The award of Fellowship (FRS, HonFRS & ForMemRS) and the Research Fellowships described above, several other awards, lectures and medals of the Royal Society are also given. Down Survey The Down Survey was a cadastral survey of Ireland, carried out by English scientist, William Petty , in 1655 and 1656. It was created to provide for precise re-allocation of land confiscated from
3471-597: The cause of science, but do not have the kind of scientific achievements required of Fellows or Foreign Members. Honorary Fellows include the World Health Organization's Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (2022), Bill Bryson (2013), Melvyn Bragg (2010), Robin Saxby (2015), David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville (2008), Onora O'Neill (2007), John Maddox (2000), Patrick Moore (2001) and Lisa Jardine (2015). Honorary Fellows are entitled to use
3560-594: The clothiers unemployed. In his Political Arithmetick , Petty made a practical study of the division of labour , showing its existence and usefulness in Dutch shipyards. Classically the workers in a shipyard would build ships as units, finishing one before starting another. But the Dutch had it organised with several teams each doing the same tasks for successive ships. People with a particular task to do must have discovered new methods that were only later observed and justified by writers on political economy . Petty also applied
3649-537: The country following the Irish Rebellion of 1641 . This Cromwellian conquest was largely complete by 1652. This army was raised and supported by money advanced by private individuals, subscribed on the security of 2,500,000 acres (10,000 km ) of Irish land to be confiscated at the close of the rebellion. This approach had been provided for by the 1642 Adventurers' Act of the Long Parliament , which said that
William Petty - Misplaced Pages Continue
3738-568: The end itself: Nor were it hard to substitute in the place of Money [gold and silver] (were a comptency of it wanting) what should be equivalent unto it. For Money is but the Fat of the Body-Politick, whereof too much doth often hinder its agility, as too little makes it sick... so doth Money in the State quicken its Action, feeds from abroad in the time of Dearth at home.' What is striking about these passages
3827-476: The establishment of a bank. He explicitly stated in Verbum Sapienti "nor is money wanting to answer all the ends of a well-policed state, notwithstanding the great decreases thereof which have happened within these Twenty years" and that higher velocity is the answer. He also mentions that there is nothing unique about gold and silver in fulfilling the functions of money and that money is the means to an end, not
3916-445: The excess of what a labourer produces on it in a year over what he ate himself and traded for necessities. It was therefore the profit above the various costs related to the factors involved in production. The natural rate of rent is related to his theories on usury . At the time, many religious writers still condemned the charging of interest as sinful. Petty also involved himself in the debate on usury and interest rates , regarding
4005-461: The fellowships described below: Every year, up to 52 new fellows are elected from the United Kingdom, the rest of the Commonwealth of Nations , and Ireland, which make up around 90% of the society. Each candidate is considered on their merits and can be proposed from any sector of the scientific community. Fellows are elected for life on the basis of excellence in science and are entitled to use
4094-502: The first complete mapping of Ireland in 1673 and the first census of Ireland, for the year 1659. Sir William Petty further used the Down Survey, supplemented with other materials from surveys in 1636–40 and 1656–9, as research towards his 1685 atlas publication, Hiberniae Delineatio , the first printed atlas of Ireland, which used reduced edited versions of his maps. The survey brought him considerable personal profit. As his reward, he acquired approximately 30,000 acres (120 km ) in
4183-421: The first four public charges, and recommends increased spending on care for the elderly, sick, orphans, etc., as well as the government employment of supernumeraries . Petty was interested in the extent to which taxes could be raised without inciting rebellion On the issue of raising taxes, Petty was a definite proponent of consumption taxes . He recommended that in general taxes should be just sufficient to meet
4272-436: The first two chapters of Verbum Sapienti the first rigorous assessments of national income and wealth. To him, it was all too obvious that a country's wealth lay in more than just gold and silver. He worked off an estimation that the average personal income was £6 13s 4d per annum, with a population of six million, meaning that national income would be £40m. Petty's theory produced estimates, some more reliable than others, for
4361-739: The floor of the south choir aisle of the Abbey reads "HERE LAYES SIR WILLIAM PETY". The third Marquess also erected the Lansdowne Monument on Cherhill Down in Wiltshire. Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society ( FRS , ForMemRS and HonFRS ) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to
4450-530: The good of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, and to pursue the ends for which the same was founded; that we will carry out, as far as we are able, those actions requested of us in the name of the Council; and that we will observe the Statutes and Standing Orders of the said Society. Provided that, whensoever any of us shall signify to the President under our hands, that we desire to withdraw from
4539-1526: The improvement of natural knowledge , including mathematics , engineering science , and medical science ". Fellowship of the Society, the oldest known scientific academy in continuous existence, is a significant honour. It has been awarded to many eminent scientists throughout history, including Isaac Newton (1672), Benjamin Franklin (1756), Charles Babbage (1816), Michael Faraday (1824), Charles Darwin (1839), Ernest Rutherford (1903), Srinivasa Ramanujan (1918), Jagadish Chandra Bose (1920), Albert Einstein (1921), Paul Dirac (1930), Winston Churchill (1941), Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1944), Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1945), Dorothy Hodgkin (1947), Alan Turing (1951), Lise Meitner (1955), Satyendra Nath Bose (1958), and Francis Crick (1959). More recently, fellowship has been awarded to Stephen Hawking (1974), David Attenborough (1983), Tim Hunt (1991), Elizabeth Blackburn (1992), Raghunath Mashelkar (1998), Tim Berners-Lee (2001), Venki Ramakrishnan (2003), Atta-ur-Rahman (2006), Andre Geim (2007), Bai Chunli (2014), James Dyson (2015), Ajay Kumar Sood (2015), Subhash Khot (2017), Elon Musk (2018), Elaine Fuchs (2019) and around 8,000 others in total, including over 280 Nobel Laureates since 1900. As of October 2018 , there are approximately 1,689 living Fellows, Foreign and Honorary Members, of whom 85 are Nobel Laureates. Fellowship of
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#17328552599054628-402: The justification for usury itself, that of forbearance , he then shows his Hobbesian qualities, arguing against any government regulation of the interest rate, pointing to the "vanity and fruitlessness of making civil positive laws against the laws of nature". This is one of the major themes of Petty's writings, summed up by his use of the phrase vadere sicut vult , from which laissez-faire
4717-514: The losse of our said Trade" (p. 59), albeit with a concession that he is no expert in the study of the wool trade. On prohibiting imports, for example from Holland, such restrictions did little other than drive up prices, and were only useful if imports vastly exceeded exports. Petty saw far more use in going to Holland and learning whatever skills they have than trying to resist nature. Epitomizing his viewpoint, he thought it preferable to sell cloth for "debauching" foreign wines, rather than leave
4806-465: The mechanics of shipping instead. In 1661 he was elected as a Member of Parliament for Inistioge in the Parliament of Ireland . In 1662, he was admitted as a charter member of the Royal Society of the same year. This year also saw him write his first work on economics, Treatise of Taxes and Contributions . Petty counted naval architecture among his many scientific interests. He had become convinced of
4895-457: The merchants to decide what goods a nation buys with the smaller amount of money. He noted in Quantulumcunque concerning money that countries plentiful in gold have no such laws restricting specie . On exports in general, he regarded prescriptions, such as recent Acts of Parliament forbidding the export of wool and yarn, as "burthensome". Further restrictions "would do us twice as much harm as
4984-407: The monarch could adhere, when deciding how to raise money for the war. Petty lists six kinds of public charge, namely defence, governance, the pastorage of men's souls , education, the maintenance of impotents of all sorts and infrastructure, or things of universal good . He then discusses general and particular causes of changes in these charges. He thinks that there is great scope for reduction of
5073-425: The new survey, on the basis that Worsley intended to map only territorial boundaries, to the exclusion of the administrative boundaries introduced from 1520s for local government. The Civil Survey which preceded the Down Survey was not a mapped survey, but provided detailed descriptions of boundaries and valuations of holdings, and its data was used as input to Petty's survey. William Petty, then physician-general to
5162-571: The number of the city will be eight times its present number, 5,359,000. And when (besides the said number) there will be 4,466,000 to perform the tillage, pasturage, and other rural works necessary to be done without the said city. He imagined a future in which "the city of London is seven times bigger than now, and that the inhabitants of it are 4,690,000 people, and that in all the other cities, ports, towns, and villages, there are but 2,710,000 more". He expected this some time around 1800, extrapolating existing trends. Long before Malthus , he noticed
5251-569: The original Down Survey barony maps survive. The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) has a set in the Annesley Collection. The British Library acquired another set in recent years. The best set, a personal set of Sir William Petty's, is in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France . It seems that set was en route by sea to London in 1707, when a French vessel captured the ship. The Bibliothèque Nationale subsequently received
5340-430: The parish maps into barony maps. The details listed in terriers beside the maps include the names of previous owners of the lands, religious affiliation, land valuation, and area. The maps themselves include townland boundaries, and sometimes houses/castles, roads and fields. It listed the owners of land in 1640, and the new owners. Considering the time and circumstances in which these maps were executed, their accuracy
5429-750: The parishes, all drawn by Petty himself, were preserved in the Surveyor General's office and in the Public Record Office in Dublin. The original Down Survey parish maps were lost in a fire in the Surveyor General's office in 1711, and the authenticated copies of the parish maps were lost in fires at the Public Record Office in the Four Courts during the Irish Civil War of 1922 . Petty also edited
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#17328552599055518-428: The phenomenon as a reward for forbearance on the part of the lender. Incorporating his theories of value, he asserted that, with perfect security, the rate of interest should equal the rent for land that the principal could have bought – again, a precocious insight into what would later become general equilibrium findings. Where security was more "casual", the return should be greater – a return for risk. Having established
5607-496: The physical sciences to the social sciences, and Petty lost all his Oxford offices. The social sciences became the area that he studied for the rest of his life. His focus became greater income from Irish colonization, and his works describe that country and propose many remedies for what he characterized as its backward condition. He helped found the Dublin Society in 1682. Returning ultimately to London in 1685, he died in 1687. He
5696-483: The population and livestock to develop an understanding of the land's potential. The ironworks was established in 1660. Despite his political allegiances, Petty was well-treated at the Restoration in 1660, although he lost some of his Irish lands. Charles II , at their first meeting, brushed aside Petty's apologies for his past support for Cromwell, "seeming to regard them as needless", and discussed his experiments into
5785-459: The population of all of England he would multiply the population of London by 8. Such a simple use of estimation could have easily have been abused and Petty was accused more than once of doctoring the figures for the Crown. (Henry Spiegel) This figure for the stock of wealth was contrasted with a money supply in gold and silver of only £6m. Petty believed that there was a certain amount of money that
5874-436: The population would be to start with estimating the population of London. He would do this by either estimating it by exports or by deaths. His method of using exports is by considering that a 30 per cent increase in exports corresponds to a similar proportionate increase in population. The way he would use deaths would be by multiplying the number of deaths by 30 – estimating that one out of thirty people dies each year. To obtain
5963-517: The position of natural features and then use the chain provided to measure distances. Skilled cartographers then laid the information collected onto gridded paper at a central office in Dublin . The method used was one of surveying the boundaries of parishes, the block of townlands inside those boundaries was not usually detailed. The scale used was generally 40 Irish perches to an inch (sometimes 80 perches), one perch equalling 21 feet (6.4 m), giving
6052-509: The post nominal letters HonFRS . Statute 12 is a legacy mechanism for electing members before official honorary membership existed in 1997. Fellows elected under statute 12 include David Attenborough (1983) and John Palmer, 4th Earl of Selborne (1991). The Council of the Royal Society can recommend members of the British royal family for election as Royal Fellow of the Royal Society . As of 2023 there are four royal fellows: Elizabeth II
6141-410: The potential of the human population to increase. But he also saw no reason why such a society should not be prosperous . Petty is best remembered for his economic history and statistical writings, preceding the work of Adam Smith , and for being a founding member of the Royal Society. Of particular interest were his forays into statistical analysis . Petty's work in political arithmetic, along with
6230-400: The principle to his survey of Ireland. His breakthrough was to divide up the work so that large parts of it could be done by people with no extensive training. Petty projected the growth of the city of London and supposed that it might swallow the rest of England – not so far from what actually happened: Now, if the city double its people in 40 years, and the present number be 670,000, and if
6319-546: The proposal is being made. There is no limit on the number of nominations made each year. In 2015, there were 654 candidates for election as Fellows and 106 candidates for Foreign Membership. The Council of the Royal Society oversees the selection process and appoints 10 subject area committees, known as Sectional Committees, to recommend the strongest candidates for election to the Fellowship. The final list of up to 52 Fellowship candidates and up to 10 Foreign Membership candidates
6408-424: The public the utility of a scientific training". He further explained his unpopularity by the need to attack him rather than directly attack his leader, Henry Cromwell . Petty gained fame for his Survey of Ireland. It was the first British imperial survey of an entire conquered nation and Petty was given great credit as a pioneer by the Royal Society . The results became part of his life's work. Petty also undertook
6497-458: The superiority of double-hulled boats, although they were not always successful; a ship called the Experiment reached Porto in 1664, but sank on the way back. Petty was knighted in 1661 by Charles II and served as MP for Inistioge from 1661-66. He remained in Ireland until 1685. He was a friend of Samuel Pepys . The events that took him from Oxford to Ireland marked a shift from medicine and
6586-445: The survey but advised its rejection. A fresh committee accepted the survey on 17 May 1656. Petty's other requests were reserved for consideration, and only after a delay of more than six months were his sureties released, and his claim for pay acknowledged. After a delay, he received £18,532 for conducting the survey, to include payment for his assistants and general expenses. He had difficulty in collecting further agreed payments from
6675-401: The various components of national income, including land, ships, personal estates and housing. He then distinguished between the stocks (£250m) and the flows yielding from them (£15m). The discrepancy between these flows and his estimate for national income (£40m) leads Petty to postulate that the other £25m is the yield from what must be £417m of labour stock, the "value of the people". This gave
6764-467: The various types of public charges that he listed. They should also be horizontally equitable , regular and proportionate. He condemned poll taxes as very unequal and excise on beer as taxing the poor excessively. He recommended a much higher quality of statistical information, to raise taxes more fairly. Imports should be taxed, but only in such a way that would put them on a level playing field with domestic produce. A vital aspect of economies at this time
6853-508: The war with Holland? The answer for Petty lay in the velocity of money 's circulation. Anticipating the quantity theory of money often said to be initiated by John Locke , whereby economic output ( Y ) times price level ( p ) = money supply ( MS ) times velocity of circulation ( v ), Petty stated that if economic output was to be increased for a given money supply and price level, 'revolutions' must occur in smaller circles (i.e. velocity of circulation must be higher). This could be done through
6942-436: The whole territory be 7,400,000, and double in 360 years, as aforesaid, then by the underwritten table it appears that A.D. 1840 the people of the city will be 10,718,880, and those of the whole country but 10,917,389, which is but inconsiderably more. Wherefore it is certain and necessary that the growth of the city must stop before the said year 1840, and will be at its utmost height in the next preceding period, A.D. 1800, when
7031-567: The work of John Graunt , laid the foundation for modern census techniques. This work in statistical analysis, when further expanded by writers like Josiah Child documented some of the first expositions of modern insurance. Vernon Louis Parrington notes him as an early expositor of the labour theory of value as discussed in Treatise of Taxes in 1692. He influenced several future economists, including Richard Cantillon , Adam Smith , Karl Marx , and John Maynard Keynes . Petty and Adam Smith shared
7120-619: Was Thomas Hobbes , for whom Petty acted as personal secretary. According to Hobbes, theory should set out the rational requirements for "civil peace and material plenty". As Hobbes had centred on peace, Petty chose prosperity. The influence of Francis Bacon was also profound. Bacon, and indeed Hobbes, held the conviction that mathematics and the senses must be the basis of all rational sciences. This passion for accuracy led Petty to famously declare that his form of science would only use measurable phenomena and would seek quantitative precision, rather than rely on comparatives or superlatives, yielding
7209-459: Was also a scientist, inventor, and merchant, a charter member of the Royal Society , and briefly a member of the Parliament of England . However, he is best remembered for his theories on economics and his methods of political arithmetic . He was knighted in 1661. Petty was born in Romsey , where his father and grandfather were clothiers . He was a precocious and intelligent youth and in 1637 became
7298-475: Was buried in Romsey Abbey . William Petty married Elizabeth Waller in 1667. She was a daughter of the regicide Sir Hardress Waller (whose life was spared after the Restoration) and Elizabeth Dowdall . She had been previously married to Sir Maurice Fenton , who died in 1664. She was given the title Baroness Shelburne for life. They had three surviving children: Neither Charles nor Henry had male issue and
7387-421: Was not a Royal Fellow, but provided her patronage to the society, as all reigning British monarchs have done since Charles II of England . Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1951) was elected under statute 12, not as a Royal Fellow. The election of new fellows is announced annually in May, after their nomination and a period of peer-reviewed selection. Each candidate for Fellowship or Foreign Membership
7476-549: Was offered a fellowship at Brasenose College and studied medicine at the University . He befriended Hartlib and Boyle and became a member of the Oxford Philosophical Club . By 1651, Petty was an anatomy instructor at Brasenose College, Oxford , as deputy to Thomas Clayton the younger . With a second doctor, Thomas Willis , Petty was involved in treating Anne Greene , a woman who survived her own hanging. Despite
7565-792: Was pardoned because her survival was widely held to be an act of divine intervention . The event was widely written about at the time, and helped to build Petty's career and reputation. He was also appointed Gresham Professor of Music by the Corporation of the City of London in 1650, retaining the post until 1660. In 1652, he took a leave of absence and travelled with Oliver Cromwell 's army in Ireland as physician-general, responsible to Cromwell's son-in-law, Charles Fleetwood . His opposition to conventional universities, being committed to 'new science' as inspired by Francis Bacon and imparted by his afore-mentioned acquaintances, perhaps pushed him from Oxford. He
7654-437: Was performed with the promised rapidity, not by introducing new scientific methods, but by careful direction of the numerous subordinates among whom the labour was apportioned. Instead of using skilled surveyors, he completed the project using the now-unemployed – and cheap – soldiery. To enable unskilled soldiers to complete the task properly, Petty designed and built some simple instruments. The soldiers were only required to note
7743-712: Was pulled to Ireland perhaps by a sense of ambition and desire for wealth and power. He secured the contract for charting Ireland in 1654, so that those who had lent funds to Cromwell's army might be repaid in land – a means of ensuring the army was self-financing. This enormous task, which he completed in 1656, became known as the Down Survey , later published (1685) as Hiberniae Delineatio . As his reward, he acquired approximately 30,000 acres (120 km) in Kenmare , in southwest Ireland, and £9,000. This personal gain to Petty led to persistent court cases on charges of bribery and breach of trust , until his death. Back in England, as
7832-481: Was that they were transforming from barter economies to money economies. Linked to this, and aware of the scarcity of money, Petty recommends that taxes be payable in forms other than gold or silver, which he estimated to be less than 1% of national wealth. To him, too much importance was placed on money, "which is to the whole effect of the Kingdom… not [even] one to 100". In making the above estimate, Petty introduced in
7921-473: Was uneven. In the parish maps, dwelling houses with the owners' names are entered in each townland. Generally speaking, it was a survey of confiscated land. Parts of counties Roscommon , Galway , Clare and Mayo were not surveyed as they had been covered in the Strafford Survey of Connaught (1636–1640) and were anyway not to be confiscated. On the completion of the work, the surveyor-general examined
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