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KEYNES AND THE BRITISH ACADEMY*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2014

DONALD WINCH
DONALD WINCH*
Affiliation:
Sussex Centre for Intellectual History and St Andrews University
*
Old Brewery, Resting Oak Hill, Cooksbridge, East Sussex, BN8 4PP[email protected]
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Abstract

This account of Keynes's relationship with the British Academy begins with his early, perhaps premature, nomination as a Fellow and its sequel, an initial rejection by the Academy on political grounds in 1920. The event became linked with the failure of his professorial colleague at Cambridge, Arthur Cecil Pigou, to be elected until 1927 on grounds that Keynes regarded as equally discreditable to the Academy. It was certainly one of the less edifying examples of Cambridge in-fighting. But having relented in his original decision not to allow his name to be put forward again Keynes was elected in 1929. The article deals with Keynes's subsequent participation in the affairs of the Academy, especially his part in nominating Beatrice Webb, the first woman to be elected to the Academy in 1930; and his contrasting failure to secure the election of Joan Robinson in the 1940s. The article is based mainly on archival sources and makes use of material drawn from the Academy's archive on the section that housed economists and economic historians between its foundation in 1902 and Keynes's death as its chairman in 1946. The article concludes by contrasting the part Keynes played in the Academy with his more dominant role as secretary to the Royal Economic Society.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 57 , Issue 3 , September 2014 , pp. 751 - 771
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

*

I should especially like to acknowledge the help given by Karen Syrett, archivist and librarian to the British Academy who is engaged in cataloguing the Academy's records. I am grateful to Dr Robin Jackson, Chief Executive and Secretary to the Academy, for permission to cite this material. I am also grateful to the Librarian of King's College, Cambridge, for permission to cite material from the Keynes papers and to Patricia McGuire, archivist at the Modern Archive Centre, for help with their use.

References

1 See letter from Keynes to his father 12 Feb. 1917 quoted in the diaries of John Neville Keynes, 1864–1917, Cambridge University Library, Add. MSS 7867.

2 Kenyon, F. G., The British Academy: the first fifty years (London, 1952)Google Scholar; see too the account of the founding preliminaries in Collini, Stefan, Public moralists: political thought and intellectual life in Britain, 1850–1930 (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 21–7Google Scholar.

3 This was the judgement of Colin Matthew in his Oxford dictionary of national biography article on Haldane, which can usefully be read in tandem with his article on Balfour.

4 Essays in biography as reprinted in The collected writings of John Maynard Keynes (CW) (30 vols., Cambridge for the Royal Economic Society, 1971–89), x, p. 44.

5 On the founding and early conduct of the Royal Economic Society, see the essays in Part i of Hey, John D. and Winch, Donald, eds, A century of economics: one hundred years of the Royal Economic Society and the Economic Journal (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar.

6 On the founding and conduct of the Economic Journal before Keynes became editor, see Winch, Donald, Wealth and life: essays on the intellectual history of political economy in Britain, 1848–1914 (Cambridge, 2009), pp. 359–64Google Scholar.

7 Until recently, the largest part of the Foxwell papers was in private hands, but has now been sold to Kwansei Gakuin University and exported to Japan. Fortunately, other parts of Foxwell's correspondence relating to Academy elections are preserved in collections that are still readily available.

8 Committee on the machinery of government, report, Cd 9230 (London, HMSO, 1918).

9 For the wider background to such proposals, see Howson, Susan and Winch, Donald, The Economic Advisory Council, 1930–1939: a study in economic advice during depression and recovery (Cambridge, 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ch. 2.

10 In 1915, Scott had enlisted Keynes's help in organizing a conference on currency and war finance involving other members of the section. Keynes papers (KP), King's College Modern Archive Centre, BA/1/4–8 letters from Scott to Keynes, 22 Mar. 1915 and 23 Sept. 1915. Along with Arthur Bowley, Keynes had first been put up for election by Scott, Marshall, and Foxwell in 1918 when a lawyer, Conway Moore, was elected.

11 KP, BA/1/12, letter from Scott to Keynes, 27 Mar. 1920: ‘I hope for your help in the future … The situation in our section requires the most delicate handling possible, but I am hopeful that if existing attitudes are maintained we shall get our fair share of new fellows – we have not nearly had that in the past.’

12 KP, BA/1/14, letter from Scott to Keynes, 27 July 1920, and KP, BA/1/18, letter from Scott to Keynes, 9 Aug. 1920, both reprinted in CW, xvii, pp. 165–6.

13 British Academy Archive (BAA), BA 358, letter to Gollancz, 13 July 1920.

14 BAA, BA 358, letter to Frederic Kenyon, 16 Oct. 1920.

15 See Maloney, John, Marshall, orthodoxy and the professionalization of economics (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 80–1Google Scholar.

16 A project of empire (London, 1914), p. x. For a recent examination of the larger background to Nicholson's appeal to Smith, see Palen, Marc-William, ‘Adam Smith as advocate of empire, c. 1870–1932’, Historical Journal, 57 (2014), pp. 179–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Letters from Nicholson to Macmillan, 8 Aug. 1914 and 21 Sept. 1914, in Macmillan Archive, British Library, Add. MSS 55209.

18 Times, 5 Jan. 1920, p. 17.

19 Letter to the Times, 4 Aug. 1920, p. 6. For reactions to the book see CW, xvii, Part i and ch. 8 on ‘Accusations of francophobia’. The most complete set of press cuttings was maintained by Keynes's mother: see KP, PP/A/54/2.

20 KP, BA/1/16, letter from Keynes to Scott, 5 Sept. 1920, also reprinted in CW, xvii, pp.165–6.

21 He served as president from 1921 to 1927. In his speech during the Commons debate on 12 Feb. 1920, he had asked whether ‘this was to be a debate on Mr. Keynes' attack on the Conference and his apology for Germany’, despite the opposition speakers' failure to mention Keynes's charges: House of Commons Debates, 12 Feb. 1920, vol. 125, c. 298.

22 CW, xvii, pp. 165–6.

23 See CW, xvi, pp. 177–84.

24 For the fuller background to Pigou's difficulties with his recruitment board, see Wallace, Stuart, War and the image of Germany: British academics, 1914–1918 (Edinburgh, 1988), pp. 144–7Google Scholar; and Aslanbeigui, Nahid, ‘Foxwell's aims and Pigou's military service: a malicious episode?’, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 14 (1992), pp. 96–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 According to a letter from Scott to Foxwell (22 Jan. 1918) now in the Kwansei Gakuin University holdings of Foxwell's papers (KGU), Marshall's list was as follows: W. J. Ashley, C. F. Bastable, A. L. Bowley, E. Cannan, S. Chapman, J. H. Clapham, A. Flux, J. M. Keynes, and A. C. Pigou.

26 For Marshall's role in influencing the choice of Pigou as his successor, see articles by Coase, Ronald and Coats, A. W., ‘The appointment of Pigou as Marshall's successor’, Journal of Law and Economics, 15 (1972), pp. 473–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar. These resentments feature in the surviving correspondence between Cunningham, Foxwell, Nicholson, and Scott in KGU for the years 1913–18. Pigou was on the section's ballot in 1913 and Cunningham told Foxwell that he thought Edwin Cannan (who was not on the ballot) should be elected ahead of Pigou, a problem he proposed to solve by voting for the lawyers' candidate, John Macdonnell, a tactic that was probably employed on subsequent occasions (see letter from Cunningham to Foxwell, 13 Feb.1913, KGU).

27 Letter to Scott, 24 Nov. 1926, in Foxwell Collection (FC), Historical Collections, Baker Library, Harvard Business School, box 4, folder 5.

28 See Rubinstein, William D., ‘Henry Page Croft and the National Party, 1917–1922’, Journal of Contemporary History, 9 (1974), pp. 129–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially p. 139.

29 See diaries, Cambridge University Library, Add. MSS 7827–67, entries for 10 Dec. 1915, 30 Apr., 1, 6, 8, 10, 19, 22–3, 25–6, 29–10 May 1916, and 25 and 29 Apr. 1917.

30 CW, xvii, pp. 166–7.

31 With the support of Foxwell, Pigou, Josiah Stamp, and Arthur L. Bowley. Minus Foxwell but plus Bastable, the same set of signatories had proposed Pigou in 1927. The minute of the section meeting stressed unanimity of the nomination and emphasized its importance ‘both on the grounds of the exceedingly great merits of Mr. Keynes and the depleted membership of the Section’; see BAA, BA 424.

32 Nomination form, BAA, BA 434.

33 Quoted in Frederic Kenyon's memoir of ‘Israel Gollancz’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 16 (1930), pp. 424–38, at p. 410.

34 See Moggridge, Donald, ed., Keynes on the wireless (London, 2010)Google Scholar.

35 See Essays in persuasion, in CW, ix, pp. 335–6.

36 See Pigou's Essays in economics (London, 1952), p. 29.

37 Robinson, E. A. G., ‘Fifty years on the council’, in Hey, and Winch, , eds., A century of economics, p. 166Google Scholar.

38 KP, BA/1/24, letter from Keynes to Scott,11 Jan. 1930. Of the other candidates, Keynes supported Beveridge and thought Tawney worthy of consideration, though ‘the volume of his work is not great … [and] his reputation perhaps stands slightly above his deserts’. He also thought that Dennis Robertson was the ‘most distinguished pure economist’.

39 KP, BA/1/27, letter from Scott to Keynes, 22 May 1930.

40 KP, BA/1/29, letter from Scott to Keynes, 17 Apr. 1931. The orientalists in question were Sir Arthur Ernest Cowley and Lord Chalmers.

41 KP, BA/1/31, letter from Scott to Keynes, 20 May 1931.

42 Letter to Scott, 2 June 1930, FC, box 4, folder 5. As a further put-down, he added that: ‘No doubt she was a great social help to him, and supplied graces of style to which he could make no pretence, but at its very start our Academy decided that questions of style were not to be in its province, distinguishing itself pointedly in this respect from the French Academy.’ When Beatrice Webb was elected the following year, he coupled the event with H. A. L. Fisher's election as president of the Academy and said: ‘I am grieved on several grounds at the election of Mrs W. That and Fisher's election I regard as two disasters. Both have seriously let down the standing of the Academy.’ Letter to Scott, 9 July 1931, FC, box 4 folder 4.

43 See Tullberg, Rita McWilliams, ‘Marshall's contribution to the women's higher education movement’, in Raffaelli, Tiziano et al. , eds., Alfred Marshall's lectures to women (London, 1995)Google Scholar.

44 See his letter to the Cambridge Review, 21 Feb. 1921, in CW, xxviii, p. 415.

45 Essays in biography, in CW, x, pp. 232–50. On Marshall's ‘masterfulness’, see p. 162.

46 Foxwell got the highest amount granted by the Academy at that time, but typically continued to complain about the competition from the Vinogradoff project which he regarded as far less worthwhile; see letters to Scott, 14 and 20 Nov. 1927, FC, box 4, folder 5.

47 The work appeared as Bibliography of economics, 1750–1775, prepared under the auspices of the British Academy by Henry Higgs (Cambridge, 1935). For Keynes's views on Higgs, see Essays in biography, CW, x, p. 307.

48 Letter to Scott, 18 Nov. 1927, in FC, box 4, folder 5.

49 On Keynes's conduct as editor see Moggridge, Donald, ‘Keynes as editor’, in Hey, and Winch, , eds., A century of economics, pp. 143–57Google Scholar.

50 KP, BA/1/130, letter to members of section dated 3 Feb.1944.

51 Keynes consulted her each year on suggestions for names. Having to explain that figures such as G. D. H. Cole would not make much headway with economists did not help her to feel close to the section's affairs: she would have preferred membership of a section devoted to sociology. The opinion of the Academy that she confided to her diary was not flattering: she had only accepted fellowship to please Keynes and the director of the London School of Economics, Alexander Carr-Saunders. Her dispassionate view of her election was that it was evidence of the lack of notable women in British public life; see entries for 26 Apr. 1932 and 27 Sept. 1941 in the Diaries of Beatrice Webb, LSE Digital Library (http://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/browse#webb).

52 Gertrude Caton-Thompson (archaeology) was elected in 1944, Helen Maude Cam (history) was elected in 1945, and Helen Darbishire (English studies) was elected in 1947. As an indication of later numerical trends 11 women were elected during the 50s, 12 in the 60s, 17 in the 70s, 23 in the 80s, 60 in the 90s, and 92 in the 2000s. In the period since Beatrice Webb's election in 1931 and the present, the total number of women elected to ordinary and corresponding fellowships by the section that now houses economists and economic historians (S2) is 10.

53 The issue was raised by David Margoliouth and seconded by William Flinders Petrie at the annual general meeting of 21 July 1920, but their resolution was withdrawn when it was pointed out that any change in the rules of the Academy required privy council approval, a general excuse open to all charitable bodies with royal charters. As in the case of other institutions, this piece of legislation covering the civil service, the courts, and universities, despite coming in the wake of the Representation of People Act 1918 which conferred the vote on women, was rarely invoked. See Creighton, W. B., ‘Whatever happened to the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act?’, Industrial Law Journal, 4 (1975), pp. 155–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 See Mason, Joan, ‘The admission of the first women to the Royal Society of London’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 46 (1992), pp. 279–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and for a world-wide survey of similar bodies see the same author's ‘The women fellows’ jubilee’, ibid., 49 (1995), pp. 125–40.

55 For reconstruction of the role of the ‘circus’ by one of Keynes's editors, see Moggridge, Donald, Maynard Keynes: an economist's biography (London, 1992), pp. 555–70Google Scholar. For an all-round reconstruction see Clarke, Peter, The Keynesian revolution in the making, 1924–1936 (Oxford, 1988)Google Scholar, part iv.

56 KP, BA/1/124.

57 KP, BA/1/163, letter to Hicks, 12 Mar. 1944.

58 KP, BA 1/157. Joan Robinson was at the centre of the Cambridge quarrels that led to the split between Keynes on the one side and Pigou and Dennis Robertson on the other; see Moggridge, Maynard Keynes, pp. 599–602. Within the Academy, she was preferred by Robbins (KP, BA/1/144, letter to Keynes, 9 Feb. 1944). Despite his closeness to Hayek on matters of economic theory and policy in the thirties, Robbins later commended Hayek for his ‘scholarship of our subject’ rather than his economics.

59 Keynes had an old-fashioned preference for ‘politics’ over ‘social science’: ‘I find it sad that we are not able to take this opportunity to adopt the former decent, dignified, and ancient designation.’ KP/BA/1/193, letter to section dated 24 Feb. 1945.

60 BAA, minute of section meeting in 1946. No member was present but Keynes reported on the postal voting and made this plea to council.

61 On the obstacles that retarded Joan Robinson's advancement, see Aslanbeigui, Nahid and Oakes, Guy, The provocative Joan Robinson: the making of a Cambridge economist (Durham, NC, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the general neglect of women's contributions to economics, with an emphasis on American experience, see Ann Dimand, Mary et al. , eds., Women of value: feminist essays on the history of women in economics (London, 1995)Google Scholar.

62 CW, xvi, p. 286.

63 CW, xxviii, ch. 3.

64 This can now be appreciated via the website of the Newton Project, where Keynes's correspondence is on open access: www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/prism.php?id=19.

65 The history of the Bentham edition and Keynes's part in it can be found in Schofield, Philip, ‘Werner Stark and Jeremy Bentham's economic writings’, History of European Ideas, 35 (2009), pp. 475–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the Ricardo edition, see Rosselli, Annalisa, ‘Sraffa's edition of Ricardo's Works: reconstruction of a reconstruction’, in Cozzi, T. and Marchionatti, R., eds., Piero Sraffa's political economy (London, 2001)Google Scholar.