References and further reading
Arnon, A. (1991), Thomas Tooke: Pioneer of Monetary Theory, Ann Arbour, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Skaggs, N.T. (2003), ‘Thomas Tooke, Henry Thornton, and the development of British monetary orthodoxy’, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 25 (2), 177-96.
Smith, M. (2003), ‘On central banking rules: the Bank Charter Act of 1844’, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 25 (1), 39-61.
Smith, M. (2009), ‘Thomas Tooke on the Corn Laws’, History of Political Economy, 41 (2), 343-82. Smith, M. (2011), Thomas Tooke and the Monetary Thought of Classical Economics, London: Routledge. Tooke, T. (1823), Thoughts and Details of High and Low Prices of the Last Thirty Years, in Four Parts, London: John Murray.
Tooke, T. (1826), Considerations on the State of the Currency, London: John Murray.
Tooke, T. (1838-57), History of Prices and of the State of the Circulation during the Years 1703-1856, 6 vols, vols 1-3, London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green and Longmans, vol. 4, London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, vols 5-6, with W. Newmarch, London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans and Roberts.
Tooke, T. (1844), An Inquiry into the Currency Principle: the Connexion of the Currency with Prices and the Expediency of a Separation of Issue from Banking, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans.
Robert Torrens was born in Ireland around 1780 (the exact date of birth is not known) into a family with clergymen ancestry, received a classical education at Derry Diocesan School in his home parish of Tamlaght O’Crilly, and joined the Marines as an ensign at age 16. He married in 1801 and fathered five children, but later “divorced” his Irish wife in order to marry a minor English heiress. He died in London on 27 May 1864.
Torrens led a long and busy life with several distinguished careers. He was a professional soldier - a Lieutenant-Colonel and later Major in the Marines, who was decorated for gallantry at the battle of Anholt - from 1796 to 1834 (though only on half pay after 1823). In 1821 he became the editor and principal proprietor of The Traveller, which he merged with The Globe a year later, making it England’s second-largest daily and dominant evening paper.
He retired as managing editor in 1826, but continued to influence the paper’s policy and management until at least 1858. Torrens briefly entered Parliament for the Borough of Ipswich in 1826-27, and then again in 1831 as Member for Ashburton. After the Reform Bill of 1832 he was re-elected as Member for Bolton. Shortly after he had lost the next election in 1835 he became Chairman of the Board of Commissioners for the Colonialization of South Australia, a post he held until 1841, when after South Australia’s bankruptcy he was forced to resign. Torrens was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a founding member of the Political Economy Club, of which he remained an active member until 1851. Apart from his contributions to economics, Torrens also published two novels, Coelibia choosing a Husband (1809), and The Victim of Intolerance: or, the Hermit of Killarney (1814); the latter contained an interesting dialogue on physiocracy, probably deriving from his readings for his first work in economics, The Economists Refuted (Torrens 1808 [2000]). (For further biographical details see Moore 2016.)Torrens was a prolific writer and managed to publish some 90 books and pamphlets. However, there is a fair amount of repetition in his work, since he was not diffident about recycling previously used material several times over. He was also a gifted controversialist, who did not shy away from vigorously attacking arguments and theoretical positions that he himself had held before (often without informing his readers about this). Since it would be quite impossible to go through all his books and pamphlets and their various editions, the following discussion of his contributions will be arranged thematically.