Introduction

David Hutchison Macgregor is a member of the pantheon of British econo­mists during the early decades of the twentieth century. The leading lights of this time were, of course, Alfred Marshall, the Cambridge Professor of Political Economy, and Francis Ysidro Edgeworth, Oxford's Drummond Professor of Political Economy.

The author is most appreciative of the kindness and courtesies shown by Simon Frost and Clare Trowell at the Marshall Library, Cambridge University, in providing access to the collected papers of Alfred Marshall and Austin Robinson as well as Grant Buttars and Laura Cooijmans-Keizer at the Centre for Research Collections, Main Library, University of Edinburgh, for their research assistance.

¹ Hicks (1953: 120) in his Inaugural Lecture as Drummond Professor stated: ‘We go to Marshall for the answers, but for the questions—the questions which still have to be asked after Marshall—we go to Edgeworth'. Roy Harrod remarked in his 1967 retirement speech that Edgeworth was likely ‘the greatest Oxford economist of all time' (Harrod quoted in Young and Lee 1993: viii).

L. Jacobsen (*)

Baker University, Baldwin City, Kansas, USA e-mail: Ljacobsen@bakeru.edu

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 283

R. A. Cord (ed.), The Palgrave Companion to Oxford Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58471-9_12

Though Keynes and Pigou were Marshall’s most famous students, Macgregor was one of Marshall’s favourites (see Lee 2011; Groenewegen 2012).

Macgregor was born and bred a Scot. He was born on 10 May 1877 in Monifieth, Forfarshire. Macgregor was very much an “Edinburgh man” hav­ing studied at George Watson’s College, an independent school in the city, for two years prior to entering Edinburgh University where he distinguished himself with a First Class Honours MA in Philosophy in 1898. During his four years at Edinburgh he studied Latin, Greek, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, Logic and Mental Philosophy. Edinburgh awarded Macgregor an Honorary LLD (Doctor of Laws) in 1945.

In 1898, Macgregor went on to Cambridge University for three years to study economics under Marshall where he again distinguished himself with First Class Honours in the Moral Sciences Tripos. (The Economics Tripos was not established until 1903.) He was elected President of the Cambridge Union, the famous debating society, in 1902.

After completing his degree, Macgregor stayed in Cambridge, and with Marshall’s financial support, lectured in economics and assisted Marshall in the marking of student papers. Macgregor proved to be a daunting lecturer and acquired the reputation as a taskmaster amongst the students. In a letter to his colleague Herbert Foxwell, dated 8 February 1906, Marshall wrote: ‘I know that Macgregor is inclined to seek out difficulties overmuch; though he is trying to smooth his mind out. But men who found him too hard would get what they want from Green [G.E. Green’s Elementary Political Economy]. In a subsequent letter to Foxwell, dated 12 February 1906, Marshall added: ‘I agree with you that the young men ought to do some drudgery; and I had that in mind when I suggested that Macgregor should give a full first years course, pitched rather higher than Green’s’ (Marshall to Foxwell, quoted in Whitaker 1996, 3: 124 and 126 respectively).

In 1904, Macgregor particularly impressed Marshall with his entry for the prestigious Cobden Club Essay Prize. The “Subjects for Cobden Club Essays 1904” contained a list of six subjects on economics. The list began with “The causes and effects of Commercial and Industrial Trusts, and the extent to which it is possible and desirable to introduce legislative restrictions on their operations” (Alfred Marshall Papers, Marshall Library, Cambridge: Section 2/8, 1904). This was the subject Macgregor chose to address, his essay finish­ing second in the competition with Marshall as one of the three judges. Marshall thought Macgregor’s essay deserved the award and exclaimed in a private letter that ‘its 420! typed pages contain an extraordinary amount of original thought’ (Marshall to Tanner, 7 December 1904, in Whitaker 1996, 3: 98). The essay was likely the basis for Macgregor’s successful fellowship dis­sertation for Trinity College, Cambridge, in the same year of1904. Macgregor’s signature Industrial Combination was a modified version of his dissertation, appearing in 1906.

In 1908, the year in which Marshall retired, Macgregor succeeded John Clapham (who returned to Cambridge) as Professor of Political Economy at Leeds University. This appointment was likely on the strength of the critically acclaimed Industrial Combination and, Marshall’s enthusiastic support. For someone so young as Macgregor to receive a professorship was extraordinary and suggested much promise for the years to come.

The Great War, however, would intervene. Despite being nearly 40-years- old, Macgregor fought for King and Country and no less than on the front line in and out of the trenches for which he won the Military Cross for “exem­plary gallantry”. The experience, including a severe head wound (and, in later years, the grievous loss of his wife and a daughter), would have adverse conse­quences for his health during the remainder of his life. Most noticeably, he lost the ability to give his customary eloquent lectures. Austin Robinson, another devout Marshallian industrial economist, reflected that Macgregor ‘in his last years at Oxford...had somewhat lost the capacity to inspire others. But all this seems strange because there was real life and penetration in [Macgregor’s] books themselves’. Later, Robinson wrote in another letter: ‘Macgregor was one ofthe ablest ofMarshall’s pupils. By the time I knew him he was a dull dog, but he had been a very different sort of person when young’ (Robinson to Lee, 6 September 1980 and Robinson to Hubback, 9 July 1982 respectively, Austin Robinson Papers, Marshall Library, Cambridge University: Section 2/6).

In 1919, Macgregor became the Stanley Jevons Professor of Political Economy at Manchester. Just two years later, he was invited by the electors to take up the Drummond Professorship of Political Economy at Oxford, this without even having made a formal application. Those who did apply included Edwin Cannan, who was at the time the leading professor at LSE. Macgregor would hold the Drummond Chair until his retirement in 1945. He was suc­ceeded by fellow Scot and Cambridge man, Sir Hubert Henderson, followed by John Hicks, who would later become a Nobel Laureate.

Sadly, in 1953, Macgregor tragically died in a street accident in Oxford. May he be long remembered as far from being a “dour Scot” as ‘his friends will never forget the light which seemed to come from within his handsome Scots features and the kindly humour which he never lost. Those who talked with Macgregor generally came away feeling they had been with a great man' (Andrews 1953: 346).^[80]

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