author
William Thomas Thornton
1813–1880
A thoughtful Victorian writer and economist, he spent most of his working life in the East India Company and later the India Office while building a reputation for independent ideas about labor, land, and political economy.
1 Audiobook
Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics With Some of Their Applications
by William Thomas Thornton
About the author
Born in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, in 1813, William Thomas Thornton was an English economist, civil servant, and author. He joined the East India Company in 1836 and, after the transfer of its functions to the British government, continued at the India Office, where he eventually served as secretary for public works.
Thornton is best remembered for writing on economics and social questions. His books include Over-Population and Its Remedy, A Plea for Peasant Proprietors, and On Labour, works that explored poverty, landholding, and the condition of working people. He was also known as a friend and intellectual associate of John Stuart Mill.
Alongside his economic writing, Thornton published travel and literary works, giving his career a wider range than that of a specialist theorist. He died in London in 1880, leaving behind the reputation of a serious but original Victorian thinker who often took an independent line in public debate.