The Drummond Professor of Political Economy, 1922-1945

Macgregor accepted the Drummond Chair a few days after it was offered to him in late July 1921 by the electors of the Professorship. Macgregor took up the position upon Edgeworth’s retirement at the beginning of the 1922 aca­demic year, one he would hold for twenty-three years until his retirement.

Edgeworth was a huge admirer of Marshall referring to him as the ‘prime orb’ (Edgeworth 1894: 443). They shared ‘a lifelong personal and intellectual friendship’ (Keynes 1926 [1972]: 255), one that was initiated and ‘cemented’ by Marshall’s 1881 affirmative review of Edgeworth’s seminal Mathematical Psychics (Groenewegen 1995: 402). In his “Reminiscences”, Edgeworth in particular noted Marshall’s extraordinary ability to temper the application of his ‘supreme skill’ in abstract reasoning including mathematical application in order ‘above all things to be useful’ (Edgeworth 1925: 67). Under Edgeworth’s leadership, Oxford economists were well versed and intentionally so in adopt­ing Marshall’s organon (see Harrod 1953; Stigler 1990; Lee 2011). Edgeworth was, of course, second only to Marshall in stature in British economics and arguably Oxford’s only prominent economist at the time.^[88]

An Oxford professor had modest lecturing responsibilities in that typically thirty-two lectures were presented in any given academic year (see Worswick 1953). This gave professors, including Macgregor, ample time to pursue research and other activities both within and without Oxford that served to promote the stature of both the professor and the University.

We are continually discussing one policy or another by reference to some effect which it may have on costs and prices. Advances in wages; local rates; the level of income tax; the policy of free trade; all of these are closely considered as prob­lems which finally issue in the effects they have on the fighting front of industry, the buying power of the consumers.

Moreover, cartels, trusts and other amalgamations were international in scope whereby the consideration of intergovernmental relations and policies were of pronounced merit. Additionally, the variety of the courses in which Macgregor lectured also reflected the fact that there were, as noted, only a few economists in Oxford at the time. Macgregor clearly embraced PPE as he was actively involved in the creation of its Final Honours School. PPE quickly proved to be enormously successful: In 1923, there were 85 students, with this growing to 141 by 1927 and 275 by 1933. Such tremendous growth in such a short period of time necessitated the number teaching economics increasing from five to fifteen (see Andrews 1953; Young and Lee 1993).

Consequently, the intellectual fabric altered in favour of a more mathematically informed theoretical approach and ahistorical character. The ascendancy of Pigouvian-refined value theory particularly with respect to its mathematical expo­sition along with the emergence of imperfect competition theory relegated Marshall’s Principles to the status of a first-year textbook (see Young and Lee 1993). Harrod reflected in his 1967 retirement speech that Oxford economics had become rather detached from Marshall. Elsewhere, Harrod (1953: 59) observed that Oxford had also become liberated from ‘the great edifices of Marshall and Pigou’ by an ‘eclectic’ disposition which gave economics a fresh start.^[89]

Hicks (1953: 120), interestingly enough, in his Inaugural Lecture as Drummond Chair spoke very highly of PPE as being perfectly suitable for undergraduates’ ‘general education in the “principles and structure of modern society”'. He remarked that Oxford's PPE, being interdisciplinary, was supe­rior to the Economics Tripos that Marshall had ‘imposed upon Cambridge'. For Hicks, the political and the historical were often inseparable from eco­nomic issues. He went on to note that the study of economics can suffer from a prejudice in favour of the abstract and nonhistorical. Hicks (ibid.) memora­bly stated: ‘I am quite sure that it is impossible to be a good economist unless one is more than an economist!' So, he cautioned against overspecialisation that only fostered parochial interests. Hicks, however, proceeded to admit he was very much a theorist ‘content to walk in the footsteps' (ibid.: 121) of his Drummond predecessors, both Senior and Edgeworth. The Chair allowed for such freedom, he believed. Hicks then concluded in his introductory remarks: ‘But theory, if it is to be of any use, must be about something' (ibid.), though not identifying what exactly. Had they had the chance, Marshall and Macgregor may simply have pointed out that the ‘something' should be about ‘the ordinary business of life' (in Principles’ opening line).^[90]

Macgregor was involved with Harrod and Henderson in establishing the Institute of Statistics at Nuffield College, where he was appointed Professorial Fellow, and the Oxford Economists' Research Group (OERG), of which he was a member.

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