Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Wikipedia
| William Petty | |
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William Petty |
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| Full name | William Petty |
| Born | 27 May 1623 |
| Died | 16 December 1687 |
| Era | 17th-century philosophy (Modern philosophy) |
| Region | Western philosophers |
| School | Classical economics |
| Main interests | Political philosophy, ethics, economics |
| Notable ideas | Division of labour, the growth of London, fiscal theory, monetary theory, national income accounting, economic statistics |
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Sir William Petty (27 May 1623 – 16 December 1687) was an English economist, scientist and philosopher. He first became prominent serving Oliver Cromwell and Commonwealth in Ireland. He developed efficient methods to survey the land that was to be confiscated and given to Cromwell's soldiers. He also managed to remain prominent under King Charles II and King James II, as did many others who had served Cromwell.
He was Member of the Parliament of England briefly and was also a scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur, and was a charter member of the Royal Society. It is for his theories on economics and his methods of political arithmetic that he is best remembered, however, and he is attributed as having started the philosophy of 'laissez-faire' in relation to government activity. He was knighted in 1661. He was the great-grandfather of the future Prime Minister, William Petty Fitzmaurice, 2nd Earl of Shelburne and 1st Marquess of Landsdowne.
Annotations
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William Petty was born May 26, 1623, at Romsey, in Hampshire, where his father was a poor clothier. Like many another English refugee during the Civil War, he made his way, by various shifts, to Utrecht and Leyden. There, as well as in Amsterdam and Paris, he studied languages, chemistry, and medicine. In 1648 the Parliamentary party, bent upon reorganizing Royalist Oxford, made him Fellow of Brasenose College, and soon afterwards Professor of Anatomy. Two years later he was further advanced to be physician for the army in Ireland, and soon became a confidant of Henry Cromwell, whom he served as clerk of the council at Dublin until shortly before the Restoration. While there he executed with great success the famous “Down Survey” of the forfeited lands of the rebellious Irish. Incidentally he speculated in land debentures and laid the foundations of his large fortune.
In 1661 he was knighted by Charles II; and, finding a little leisure for the first time in a decade, he turned his attention once more to science. He helped to organize the Royal Society, in whose prenatal activities he had participated at Oxford. He read several papers before it. He experimented at length with a “double bottom boat,” which seems to have been a sort of catsmarsh. In 1666 he resumed his residence in Ireland. There lawsuits about his lands and the demands of the flourishing “industrial colony of Protestants” which he had established at Kenmare in Kerry took most of his time for the ensuing twenty years. He was able, however, to make repeated and prolonged visits to London, and to agitate with vigor for fiscal reforms in Ireland. But the exchequer of Charles II could ill afford to reject any proposal, however harmful to that island, which promised ready cash at Whitehall; and Petty’s arguments in favor of the direct collection of taxes and of establishing a statistical office fell upon deaf ears.
The accession of James II, who as Duke of York and Lord High Admiral had taken an interest in Petty’s shipbuilding experiments, greatly raised his hopes of ultimate success; and he put forth a dozen essays to prove his ease. But he was destined to renewed disappointment, and died December 16, 1687, his public aims unachieved.
From http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/petty/index.html -
William Petty and Googling brings up reams of data for one….
http://www.thoemmes.com/dictionaries/petty.htm
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Petty Wm has had a very interesting Life, including early sailing days with being flogged, disabled and thus got a good education from French monks.
using his witts to win a duel. -
DR Petty had strong ties to Mr Barlow [he was the go between Mr P and Mr B]
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“…Petty’s letter to Hartlib on education was his first publication but in the next year (1648) he patented a ‘double writing’ machine, which was a device for making copies of handwritten documents…”
http://www.thoemmes.com/dictionaries/petty.htmHe received the ok to get profits by H of L & H of C:
one Wm. Petty secured invention of Double and Multiple writing march 1648.
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=32766&strquery=Pettyhttp://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=32766&strquery=sir%20wm.%20petty
name also spelt prettie -
See also:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~pillagoda/ch14-01.htm
[search for “Sir William Petty” — without quotation marks]
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Petty is the subject of a “Life” by Aubrey:-
Richard Barber, ed., John Aubrey Brief Lives. London: 1975, pp. 246-252.
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William Petty
The article from Wikipedia gives extensive information on Petty, but the great thing for me about the site is the hidden gems contributed by the annotators, and sometimes missed if confronted by the size of the Wikipedia article.
“He befriended Hartlib and Boyle, and he became a member of the London Philosophical Society, and possibly met John Milton. By 1651, he had risen to Professor of Anatomy at Brasenose College, Oxford and was also Professor of Music in London.”
Here, concerning Petty, is a gem from Lisa Jardine’s “The curious Life of Robert Hooke”…
“In December 1650, Willis and Petty had achieved instant notoriety when they discovered that the felon’s cadaver that they had gathered to dissect at Petty’s Buckley Hall Lodgings in the High Street was not in fact dead. Nan Greene, a hapless young woman who had been hanged for infanticide, was duly resuscitated and nursed back to health. Her revivers then petitioned the authorities successfully for a pardon, in light of the extraordinary nature of her miracle survival. Numerous broadsheets and poems were published, including witty verses by Walter Pope and Wren…On the strength of the publicity surrounding the Nan Greene miracle revival, Petty (hitherto a kind of freelance anatomy tutor, based at Brasenose College) was appointed Tomlins Reader in anatomy by the (Oxford) University.”
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In this 1982 edition of Brief lives By John Aubrey, ed. Richard Barber ( Boydell & Brewer, Limited) the life of Sir William Petty (1623-1687) is found on pp. 241-248 http://ur1.ca/8k6u “Search in the book” for William Petty.