From the late 1850s until his premature death in 1882, T.E. Cliffe Leslie's efforts to solve the problems of Ireland produced a critique of classical political economy that laid the chief intellectual foundation for English historical economics. Intellectually, Leslie's economics owed debts to the historical protest of Richard Jones during the 1830s, the heretical tradition of Trinity College, Dublin, the historical jurisprudence of Sir Henry Maine, and the work of J.S. Mill. Leslie's critique of orthodoxy consisted primarily of contemporary economic history and applied economics. During the 1870s, another Irish economist, J.K. Ingram, took up Leslie's banner, but, despite the contemporary popularity of his work, Ingram's writings in historical economics were to be far less intellectually influential marred as they were, by an increasing adherence to his Comtean system. Earlier in the century, H.C. Carey and Friedrich List had already challenged the universal truth and social applicability of the English classical tradition. This historical criticism was formed into the German Historical School of Economics during the second half of the nineteenth century.

Foreigners and forerunners

Many of the concerns raised by English historical economists were anticipated by the work of List and Carey. Their protest against the theory, method, and policy prescriptions of English classical economics constituted a national and historical critique which sprang from their belief that British free trade theory and practice was injurious to the economic development of the relatively underdeveloped economies of Germany and the United States. They formulated the fundamental proposition of historical economics in Germany, England, and America: Economic theory and policy ought to be relative to a particular stage of production.