James Bonar (civil servant)

James Bonar (27 September 1852 – 18 January 1941) was a Scottish civil servant, political economist and historian of economic thought.[2][3]

James Bonar
Born27 September 1852
Died18 January 1941 (aged 88)
NationalityScottish
Academic career
School or
tradition		History of Economic Thought; Austrian School[1]

Biography

He was born in Perth.[4] He was brought up, from the age of four, in Glasgow where his father was a Church of Scotland Minister. This clerical background extends to two uncles, both ministers who 'came out' in the disruption of 1843, both later serving terms as Moderator of the Free Church General Assembly. From Glasgow Academy Bonar graduated MA in Mental Philosophy from Glasgow University in 1874. He followed the same lengthy undergraduate career that Adam Smith pursued more than a century before gaining a Snell Exhibition to Balliol College, Oxford from which he graduated with a first in 1877.

A major early influence was the moral philosopher, Edward Caird: first as Professor at Glasgow and then as Master of Balliol. Together with his family background that influence helps explain Bonar's decision to spend the next three years teaching economics in the newly established University Extension Movement in the East End of London. In 1881 he began a career in the civil service only retiring (to live in Hampstead) from his final position, as Deputy Manager of the Ottawa branch of the Royal mint, in 1919 at the age of 67.

In 1886, with J. H. Muirhead and others, Bonar was instrumental in establishing the London Ethical Society, the first ethical society in the UK.[5] Although the LES became the London School of Ethics and Philosophy in 1897 (which was later absorbed in the London School of Economics), it was the first of a growing number of ethical societies which prompted the formation of the Union of Ethical Societies in 1896, known today as Humanists UK.[5]

He was awarded an LLD from Glasgow University in 1887, and an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University in 1935.

Major publications

Notes
  1. " Apart from his special interest in Adam Smith, Malthus and David Ricardo, James Bonar main service to his generation is the exposition of the ideas of the Austrian School of Carl Menger, Böhm-Bawerk, and Friedrich von Wieser, when, 30 years ago, few British economist could read German." "Dr. James Bonar: Philosopher and Economist". The Times: 7. 20 January 1941.
  2. "BONAR, James". Who's Who. Vol. 59. 1907. p. 179.
  3. Who's Who, 1932: An Annual Biographical Dictionary with which is Incorporated "Men and Women of The Time" (84 ed.). London and New York: A & C Black Limited and The Macmillan Company. 1932. p. 317 – via Internet Archive.
  4. Blaug, Mark, ed. (1986). "Bonar, James". Who's Who in Economics: A Biographical Dictionary of Major Economists 1700-1986 (2nd ed.). Wheatsheaf Books Limited. p. 102 – via Internet Archive.
  5. "UCL Bloomsbury Project". ucl.ac.uk. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
  6. "Review of Letters of David Ricardo to Thomas Robert Malthus ed. by James Bonar". Science. XI (269): 156. 30 March 1888.
  7. "Ricardo's Letters to Malthus, edited by Bonar. Note". The Quarterly Journal of Economics. II: 65. 1887–1888.

References
  • "Dr. James Bonar: Philosopher and Economist". The Times: 7. 20 January 1941.
  • Shirras, G. F. (April 1941). "'Obituary: James Bonar'". Economic Journal. 51: 145–56. JSTOR 2225667.
  • "Bonar, James" in The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, Eatwell, Milgate, Newman (eds.), 1987.
  • "Bonar, James" in Rutherford D (ed.) The Biographical Dictionary of British Economists' vol.1, Theommes Continuum, 2004,pp. 123–4.
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