author
Francis Davy Longe
1831–1905
Remembered for challenging old economic ideas, this Victorian writer also lived an unexpectedly wide-ranging life as a lawyer, civil servant, cricketer, and naturalist. His books mix sharp argument with the curiosity of someone interested in how society really worked.
1 Audiobook
Lowestoft in olden times
by Francis Davy Longe
About the author
Francis Davy Longe was an English writer and public servant born in Suffolk in 1831. He studied at Harrow and Oriel College, Oxford, trained in law at the Inner Temple, and went on to build a career that ranged from the bar to government service.
He is best known as an early critic of the classical "wages-fund" theory in economics, especially through his 1866 work A Refutation of the Wage-Fund Theory of Modern Political Economy. He also wrote on strikes, wages, social questions, and later on local history and geology, showing the same habit of questioning accepted ideas across very different subjects.
Outside his writing, Longe was a first-class cricketer for Oxford University and Marylebone Cricket Club, later worked with the Local Government Board, and took an active interest in scientific societies after retiring to Lowestoft. Reliable sources located for this profile give his lifespan as 1831 to 1910, despite the 1905 date in your prompt.