Introduction
Nassau William Senior was born in Compton Beauchamp in Berkshire on 26 September 1790, the firstborn child of the Reverend John Raven Senior (1764-1824), the son of a merchant trading overseas, and his wife, Mary, daughter of Henry Duke, solicitor-general of Barbados.
Senior's father was the vicar of Durnford and the first name Nassau was given to the child in remembrance of his grandfather Nassau Thomas Senior. The greater part of his childhood was spent in the village of Uffington in the Vale of the White Horse in Berkshire. He was educated at home by his father who had graduated at Merton College, Oxford, in 1785 and from whom, according to Leslie Stephen in the Dictionary of National Biography, he ‘imbibed a permanent love of classical literature' (Stephen 1897: 246). Senior's grandfather was a wealthy man who owned Baldrick's and Pool's plantations in Barbados as well as significant cash, bonds and other securities. He died in 1786 and his widow Frances Senior passed away a month before her grandson was born. Nassau Senior's parents inherited the entire fortune.Senior entered Eton College at the age of twelve in May 1803. His tutor was John Bird Sumner, a future Archbishop of Canterbury, who at the time
J. Vint (*)
Manchester, UK
e-mail: j.vint@mmu.ac.uk
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was only twenty-three. Later in life, he served with Senior on the Poor Law Commission. Senior did not distinguish himself initially at Eton but was triumphant at the age of sixteen when he defeated more than thirty candidates to be elected to a demyship at Magdalen College, Oxford. A demyship was an undergraduate fellowship which provided free education and living facilities but which also carried with it a number of duties and restrictions relating to the wearing of academic dress, attendance at chapel and limits on theatre attendance.
The curriculum at Magdalen in those days was based almost exclusively on the classical languages, theology and a little ancient and modern geography. In his final examination in Spring 1811, Senior passed in Classics but failed in Theology and he then had six months in which to repair the damage by retaking the examination. He was introduced to Richard Whately, a Fellow at Oriel College, who agreed to become his tutor. Whately records his pupil as working assiduously from morning to night for the whole period before the examination. The result was that Senior was awarded First Class Honours in Classics which, after the demyship, was the second victory in his young career. The third, perhaps, was that Senior and Whately became firm friends for more than half a century.In the following sections, I discuss Senior's career in conveyancing; his two periods as Drummond Professor at Oxford; his contributions to economic theory; some of his key papers in the run up to the period of Poor Law reform; his work on the Poor Law in England from 1832; his contributions to the Irish Poor Law and famine debates; his controversial papers on combinations, hand-loom weavers and factory legislation; his arguments in favour of education reform; a review of his opinion on the role of government; and a conclusion.
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