William Cunningham

Background

William Cunningham was born in Edinburgh on December 29, 1849.

Education

He was educated at Edinburgh Academy, Edinburgh University, Tübingen University, and Trinity College, Cambridge.

Career

He was university lecturer in history at Cambridge from 1884 to 1891, and professor of economics at King's College, London, from 1891 to 1897. He was also vicar of Great St. Mary's, Cambridge, from 1887, and was made archdeacon of Elu in 1907. He became a fellow of the British academy in 1887. He was a lecturer in economic history at Harvard University in 1899 and again in 1917. He died at Cambridge on July 10, 1919.

Achievements

• He was an eminent economic historian, a proponent of the historical method in economics, and an opponent of free trade.
  
  Cunningham's great work and the only one that has shown any permanent value is The Growth of English Industry and Commerce (1882). It went through seven editions by 1910 and was long the standard work on the subject. Though unsound in some of its conclusions, this work was full and useful for the Middle Ages and the 16th century, but it became progressively weaker and thinner as it approached modern times. In spite of such shortcomings, Cunningham is given credit as a pioneer in producing an organized survey of English economic history.

Connections

colleague:

Alfred Marshall