Granville Sharp: a neglected economist?

Abstract

It is not difficult to understand why the Sketches would be credited to Sharp. His death four years before the publication of Ricardo's Principles placed him within the period under discussion by Seligman. Sharp possessed an extremely wide range of interests and was a prolific writer on a remarkable variety of topics. By 1809 he was a prominent public figure and had produced more than 40 separate works, several of which had reached second or third editions. He had established a reputation as a controversialist and his oeuvre is certainly consistent with Seligman's generalisation that the ‘greater part of the economic literature’ between 1776 (the year of The Wealth of Nations) and 1817 consisted of ‘pamphlets dealing with current practical problems’ (Seligman, 1903, p. 336). Sharp had published on the conditions in West Africa, the illegality of the press-ganging of sailors, parliamentary reform, colonial law, frankpledge, a popular militia and public charities.

Citation

Ditchfield, G.M. (2010), "Granville Sharp: a neglected economist?", Allington, N.F.B. and Thompson, N.W. (Ed.) English, Irish and Subversives among the Dismal Scientists (Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 28 Part 2), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 73-88. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0743-4154(2010)000028B006