Conclusion
Thorold Rogers did not make any meaningful theoretical contributions to economics and in particular failed to discover any inductive laws of economic history. Rather, his forte was the hunting down of historical data, using this to help explain poverty especially amongst agricultural labourers.
Some of Rogers’ contemporaries excelled as much as he did in their respective fields. However, it remains the case that few, if any, reached the heights of A History of Agriculture and Prices in terms of the length of time it took to compile, the period that it covers and its level of detail. Riding the wave of the Victorian fad for statistics, it took six years to complete the first two volumes and it was to be another sixteen years before volumes III and IV were published, this long gap being the result of Rogers’ political commitments but also because there was less data available for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Volumes V and VI appeared in 1887, a year after Rogers ceased being an MP, while the two parts of volume VII were published in 1902, two years after his death. Even so, Rogers admitted that the research involved was ‘costly beyond my expectations’ (Rogers 1866-1902, 4: vi).Even though A History would not be familiar to the vast majority of today’s students, it was certainly still being used in the decades after it was finally completed. For instance, Nicholson quoted from it in various places in his three-volume Principles of Political Economy (see Nicholson 1893-1901) while Clark stated in 1932 that the volumes were ‘still in constant use as a book of reference’ (Clark 1932: 99). Anyone examining A History and Rogers’ other work in economics will get a keen insight into the main pillars of his thinking, including his theory that rent is not determined by prices but by profits, the allegedly destructive role played by government in the economy, a dislike of all forms of privilege, support for the role that trade unions play in equalising the respective levels of bargaining power possessed by labour and capital, and perhaps, above all, an increasing hostility, as the volumes progressed, towards orthodoxy in economics. However, it would also be apparent to the reader that Rogers had a tendency to interpret the development of British economic history as being merely made up of a series of key events, such as the Black Death and the Peasants' Revolt.
This was at the expense of other possible explanatory processes, notably social evolution. It was also the case that Rogers would sometimes claim originality, even if this was not necessarily borne out by the facts.Rogers' gruff manner made it difficult for others to support him. His only disciple was Henry de Beltgens Gibbins, who became a schoolmaster after attending Oxford and wrote popular books on aspects of the history of England in the nineteenth century, even if these same volumes were often frowned upon by the community of academic historians at Oxford. Rogers did establish the Oxford University Political Economy Club. However, his unappealing personality meant that he was not able to found a school at the University.
Perhaps it is best to end with a quote from Beveridge:
Prices and wages are the social phenomena most susceptible of objective statistical record over long periods of time. They reflect and measure the influence of changes in population, in supply of precious metals, in industrial structure and agricultural methods, in trade and transport, in consumption and in the technical arts... A comprehensive co-ordinated history of prices and wages is a framework which should underlie all studies of economic development (Beveridge 1939: xxi).
Despite his shortcomings, Rogers appreciated all of this, dedicating most of his academic life to pursuing such a ‘co-ordinated history'. As such, he should be recognised as a noteworthy Oxford economist and perhaps as one of the founders of modern British economic history.