William Petty and the origins of political economy

Abstract

Life and writings Sir William Petty was born on 26 May 1623, the twentieth year of the reign of James I, in the village of Romsey, Hampshire (England), and died 26 December 1687 in London. To say that his life was eventful is an understatement. The son of a clothier, he was a ship-boy on a merchant ship at the age of thirteen, but ten months later he was put ashore on the French coast with a broken leg. He supported himself by giving Latin and English lessons, and soon succeeded in gaining admission to the Jesuit college in Caen where he studied Latin, Greek, French, mathematics and astronomy. After serving in the Royal Navy, when the civil war broke out, he joined other refugees, first in Holland (1643), and then in Paris (1645–6), where he studied medicine and anatomy. When his father died in 1646 he returned to Romsey, but he soon went to London, where he tried unsuccessfully to exploit one of his own inventions, a machine capable of producing duplicate copies of a written text simultaneously, for which he had obtained a patent in 1646. In 1648, after a few months' study, he was awarded the degree of doctor of medicine at Oxford University. Here his career quickly blossomed, favoured by the political unrest of the period that led to the dismissal of the old professors who were considered to be supporters of the king. In 1650 Petty became professor of anatomy.