Gregory King
Encyclopedia
Gregory King was an English genealogist, engraver and statistician
.
, England
. His father was a surveyor and landscape gardener. Gregory was a very bright boy and his father used him as an assistant in his surveying work. At 14 Gregory became a clerk to William Dugdale
the antiquary and herald, i.e. student of heraldry
. King later (1667–69) worked for Lord Hatton, who was forming a collection of the arms of the nobility. When this project collapsed, King went to work for Lady Gerard as steward, auditor and secretary (1669–72). In 1672 he moved to London to work as an engraver for the printer John Ogilby
; he also did surveying work and engraved maps. In 1677 King was appointed Rouge Dragon Pursuivant of Arms in Ordinary
in the College of Arms
. He became Lancaster Herald of Arms in Ordinary
in 1688 and held that post until his death in 1712. These positions in the ceremonial branch of the state were lucrative and on three occasions he was sent abroad to confer the Order of the Garter
on foreign princes. By 1695 King was started on a second official career in the business branch of the state. He was a commissioner in charge of a new tax on marriages, births and burials and later Secretary to the Commission of Public Accounts and Secretary to the Controllers of Army Accounts; in 1708 he was one the three commissioners appointed to state the debts of the dead King William.
"The first great economic statistician," as Richard Stone
calls him,
came a generation after John Graunt
and William Petty
and continued their work. Their work was mainly in the public domain but King's was not. Material from his manuscripts appeared in the writings of his friend Charles Davenant
and—a century later—in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (Book I, Chapter VIII), and in An Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Britain by George Chalmers
. It is clear from his manuscripts that King had access to a great deal of confidential information and it has been suggested that he was given access because he was a confidential advisor to the government. It was published for the first time in 1801.
King's manuscript Natural and Political Observations and Conclusions upon the State and Condition of England, 1696, contains estimates of the population and wealth of England at the close of the 17th century. It describes the demographic characteristics of the population of England and
Wales: age, gender, marital status, numbers of children, servants and "sojourners." King also calculates the amount of beer, ale, and malt consumed annually in England. These estimates are based on intelligent inferences from data available to the state as a by-product of its taxing activities. However, in more speculative mood, King considers the present and future level of world population. His Notebook contains projections of world population: around AD 5000 or 5500 the world would be "fully peopled" with 10 times the population of 1695.
Of the Naval Trade of England, 1688, and the National Profit then Arising thereby," written in 1697, is King's statistical summary of the trade and wealth of England, 1600-1688. He calculated the increases in shipping (for war and trade), customs, coinage, buildings, fortresses, and the purchases and improvements of land.
Gregory King's Law, or the "King-Davenant law," is an estimate of by how much a deficiency in the supply of corn will raise the price of corn. It appears in Davenant's Essay upon the Probable Methods of making a People Gainers in the Balance of Trade. Since the early 19th century it has usually been attributed to King.
The relevant passage is this:
Defect raises the price above the common rate
1 tenth ............... 3 tenths
2 tenths ............... 8 tenths
3 tenths ............... 16 tenths
4 tenths ............... 28 tenths
5 tenths ............... 45 tenths
In the 19th century Whewell
and Jevons
re-expressed the estimate as an equation. The estimate raises several questions. To whom should it be attributed, Davenant or King? How was it constructed? How accurate is it? Stone reviews the considerable literature on these questions.
The Natural and Political Observations appear with some of King's unpublished writings in a volume edited by Peter Laslett
.
Richard Stone
's Nobel Prize lecture on the history of social accounting contains a brief account of King's work (including some tables)
For Gregory King's law see
The article on Davenant in the Palgrave Dictionary written at the end of the 19th century.
Whewell's discussion at the end of Lecture III
Jevons's discussion in the Section on the Variation of the Price of Corn in chapter IV
Statistician
A statistician is someone who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. The core of that work is to measure, interpret, and describe the world and human activity patterns within it...
.
Life
Gregory King was born at LichfieldLichfield
Lichfield is a cathedral city, civil parish and district in Staffordshire, England. One of eight civil parishes with city status in England, Lichfield is situated roughly north of Birmingham...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. His father was a surveyor and landscape gardener. Gregory was a very bright boy and his father used him as an assistant in his surveying work. At 14 Gregory became a clerk to William Dugdale
William Dugdale
Sir William Dugdale was an English antiquary and herald. As a scholar he was influential in the development of medieval history as an academic subject.-Life:...
the antiquary and herald, i.e. student of heraldry
Heraldry
Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...
. King later (1667–69) worked for Lord Hatton, who was forming a collection of the arms of the nobility. When this project collapsed, King went to work for Lady Gerard as steward, auditor and secretary (1669–72). In 1672 he moved to London to work as an engraver for the printer John Ogilby
John Ogilby
John Ogilby was a Scottish translator, impresario and cartographer. Best known for publishing the first British road atlas, he was also a successful translator, noted for publishing his work in handsome illustrated editions.-Life:Ogilby was born in or near Killemeare in November 1600...
; he also did surveying work and engraved maps. In 1677 King was appointed Rouge Dragon Pursuivant of Arms in Ordinary
Rouge Dragon Pursuivant
Rouge Dragon Pursuivant of Arms in Ordinary is a junior officer of arms of the College of Arms, named after the red dragon of Wales.The most recent Rouge Dragon Pursuivant was Clive Edwin Alexander Cheesman, whose replacement has yet to be announced....
in the College of Arms
College of Arms
The College of Arms, or Heralds’ College, is an office regulating heraldry and granting new armorial bearings for England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
. He became Lancaster Herald of Arms in Ordinary
Lancaster Herald
Lancaster Herald of Arms in Ordinary is an English officer of arms at the College of Arms in London. The title of Lancaster Herald first occurs in 1347 at Calais, and to begin with this officer was a servant to the noble house of Lancaster...
in 1688 and held that post until his death in 1712. These positions in the ceremonial branch of the state were lucrative and on three occasions he was sent abroad to confer the Order of the Garter
Order of the Garter
The Most Noble Order of the Garter, founded in 1348, is the highest order of chivalry, or knighthood, existing in England. The order is dedicated to the image and arms of St...
on foreign princes. By 1695 King was started on a second official career in the business branch of the state. He was a commissioner in charge of a new tax on marriages, births and burials and later Secretary to the Commission of Public Accounts and Secretary to the Controllers of Army Accounts; in 1708 he was one the three commissioners appointed to state the debts of the dead King William.
"The first great economic statistician," as Richard Stone
Richard Stone
Sir John Richard Nicholas Stone was an eminent British economist who in 1984 received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for developing an accounting model that could be used to track economic activities on a national and, later, an international scale...
calls him,
came a generation after John Graunt
John Graunt
John Graunt was one of the first demographers, though by profession he was a haberdasher. Born in London, the eldest of seven or eight children of Henry and Mary Graunt. His father was a draper who had moved to London from Hampshire...
and William Petty
William Petty
Sir William Petty FRS 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...
and continued their work. Their work was mainly in the public domain but King's was not. Material from his manuscripts appeared in the writings of his friend Charles Davenant
Charles Davenant
Charles Davenant , English economist, eldest son of Sir William Davenant, the poet, was born in London.-Overview:He was educated at Cheam grammar school and Balliol College, Oxford, but left the university without taking a degree...
and—a century later—in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (Book I, Chapter VIII), and in An Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Britain by George Chalmers
George Chalmers
George Chalmers was a Scottish antiquarian and political writer.-Biography:Chalmers was born at Fochabers, Moray, in 1742. His father, James Chalmers, was a grandson of George Chalmers of Pittensear, a small estate in the parish of Lhanbryde, now St Andrews-Lhanbryde, in Moray, owned by the family...
. It is clear from his manuscripts that King had access to a great deal of confidential information and it has been suggested that he was given access because he was a confidential advisor to the government. It was published for the first time in 1801.
King's manuscript Natural and Political Observations and Conclusions upon the State and Condition of England, 1696, contains estimates of the population and wealth of England at the close of the 17th century. It describes the demographic characteristics of the population of England and
Wales: age, gender, marital status, numbers of children, servants and "sojourners." King also calculates the amount of beer, ale, and malt consumed annually in England. These estimates are based on intelligent inferences from data available to the state as a by-product of its taxing activities. However, in more speculative mood, King considers the present and future level of world population. His Notebook contains projections of world population: around AD 5000 or 5500 the world would be "fully peopled" with 10 times the population of 1695.
Of the Naval Trade of England, 1688, and the National Profit then Arising thereby," written in 1697, is King's statistical summary of the trade and wealth of England, 1600-1688. He calculated the increases in shipping (for war and trade), customs, coinage, buildings, fortresses, and the purchases and improvements of land.
Gregory King's Law, or the "King-Davenant law," is an estimate of by how much a deficiency in the supply of corn will raise the price of corn. It appears in Davenant's Essay upon the Probable Methods of making a People Gainers in the Balance of Trade. Since the early 19th century it has usually been attributed to King.
The relevant passage is this:
It is observed that but one-tenth the defect in the harvest may raise the price three-tenths, and when we have but half our crop of wheat, which now and then happens, the remainder is spun out by thrift and good management, and eked out by the use of other grain; but this will not do for above one year, and would be a small help in the succession of two or three unseasonable very destructive, in which many of the poorest sort perish, either for want of sufficient food or by unwholesome diet.
We take it that a defect in the harvest may raise the price of corn in the following proportions:
Defect raises the price above the common rate
1 tenth ............... 3 tenths
2 tenths ............... 8 tenths
3 tenths ............... 16 tenths
4 tenths ............... 28 tenths
5 tenths ............... 45 tenths
So that when corn rises to treble the common rate, it may be presumed that we want above one-third of the common produce; and if we should want five-tenths or half the common produce, the price would rise to near five times the common rate." (The Works of Sr William D'Avenant Kt, vol. ii, pp. 224, 225, edited by Sir C. Whitworth, London (1771)).
In the 19th century Whewell
William Whewell
William Whewell was an English polymath, scientist, Anglican priest, philosopher, theologian, and historian of science. He was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.-Life and career:Whewell was born in Lancaster...
and Jevons
William Stanley
William Stanley may refer to:* William Stanley , English military leader in the Wars of the Roses* William Stanley , English military commander under Queen Elizabeth I...
re-expressed the estimate as an equation. The estimate raises several questions. To whom should it be attributed, Davenant or King? How was it constructed? How accurate is it? Stone reviews the considerable literature on these questions.
Writings
- Two Tracts by Gregory King.(a) Natural and Political Observations and Conclusions upon the State and Condition of England. (b) Of the Naval Trade of England Ao. 1688 and the National Profit then arising thereby. Edited with an introduction by George E. Barnett. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins Press, 1936.
The Natural and Political Observations appear with some of King's unpublished writings in a volume edited by Peter Laslett
Peter Laslett
-Biography:Born Thomas Peter Ruffell Laslett and educated at the Watford Grammar School for Boys, Peter Laslett studied history at St John's College, Cambridge in 1935 and graduated with a double first in 1938. During the war he learned Japanese and worked at Bletchley Park and Washington decoding...
.
- The Earliest classics [facsimile reprints of] John Graunt, Natural and political observations made upon the bills of mortality, 1662 [and] G. King, Natural and political observations and conclusions upon the state and condition of England 1696 [from the 1804 printing] [and] 'The L.C.C. Burns Journal', a manuscript notebook containing workings for several projected works, composed c.1695-1700 with an introduction by Peter Laslett. Farnborough UK : Gregg, 1973.
Discussions
- Richard Stone Some British Empiricists in the Social Sciences 1650-1900, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
- John A. Taylor British Empiricism and Early Political Economy: Gregory King's 1696 Estimates of National Wealth and Population, Greenwood Press, 2005.
Resources and external links
For King's estimate of the country's population and wealth in 1688 see- Gregory King’s estimate of population and wealth, England and Wales, 1688. from Materials for the History of Statistics
Richard Stone
Richard Stone
Sir John Richard Nicholas Stone was an eminent British economist who in 1984 received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for developing an accounting model that could be used to track economic activities on a national and, later, an international scale...
's Nobel Prize lecture on the history of social accounting contains a brief account of King's work (including some tables)
For Gregory King's law see
The article on Davenant in the Palgrave Dictionary written at the end of the 19th century.
Whewell's discussion at the end of Lecture III
Jevons's discussion in the Section on the Variation of the Price of Corn in chapter IV