The Rev. Henry Beeke has hitherto been known to historians of economics for his critique of the methods by which the value of Williams Pitt’s income tax had been estimated, Observations on the Produce of the Income Tax (1800). This pamphlet is one of the better examples of the tradition of economics known as Political Arithmetic. It earned the praise of both J.R. McCulloch, who called it ‘the best example of the successful application of statistical reasonings to finance that had then appeared’, and Sir Robert Giffen, who examined the estimates with some care in The Growth of Capital and remarked that many of Beeke’s calculations ‘were fully justified by the results of the Income Tax’ (p. 100).

Beeke was a good friend of such prominent Tories as Nicholas Vansittart, later Lord Addington, and J.C. Herries. It is probable that the publication of the Observations led to a meeting with the Younger Pitt at Addington’s house in 1800. Thereafter Beeke regularly provided advice on a variety of economic topics to the Tory administration and Beeke became something of an unofficial economic adviser to the government. The topics on which he provided the most regular advice were funding and paper money. However, the most notable of Beeke’s reports is one on the wheat harvest of 1800. Widespread rumours of a scarcity led Beeke to write a long report, now in the Devon Public Record Office, in which he detailed reasons why there was no real scarcity. In the process, he also provided the first clear statement of what is called a Giffen good:

In all times of Dearness, there is an Increase in the consumption of whatever forms the Basis of the Food of the People, so long as by retrenching all other expense in Provisions they can possibly find Money to purchase it. They do not understand the Arts of Economical Cookery, they have not Utensils for it, their Stomachs are not used to novelties. With us the Consumption of Bread always increases when their Money, if divided, will not purchase an addition of Meat to the Diet which they cannot abandon. And this is true even when Bread is become in comparison far more costly.

It is not known whether this report was widely circulated, but if it was, then other early statements, such as that of the bureaucrat Simon Gray, may be indebted to Beeke.

In 1801 Beeke accepted the post of Professor of Modern History at Oxford and part of his duties involved delivering lectures on political economy, probably the earliest such lectures at Oxford. After about 1810 Beeke seems to have became less familiar with his Tory friends. In 1814 he became Dean of Bristol and for the rest of his long life appears to have eschewed all economic controversy.

See Also

Selected Works

  • 1799. Observations on the produce of the income-tax. London.