William petty biography

William Petty, physician, epidemiologist, political economist, demographer, cartographer, and administrator was an intellectual product of the seventeenth century. Petty was born in the year 1623 in Romsey, England of lower middle class parents; however, by the time of his death in 1687 he had become a knight of the realm, founder of the Royal Society, and friend of kings. Petty's life reflected the northern renaissance which induced such dramatic changes in science, technology, politics, and entrepreneurship. His education was eclectic, nonetheless he took his Doctor of Physic degree from Oxford in 1649 and became an Oxford don, where he spent the next few years as an academic before undertaking a definitive survey of Ireland on behalf of the Cromwell government. Ireland changed Petty's destiny and he became a man of the world and entrepreneur which stimulated his interest in public policy formulation and economics. It was Petty's peculiar genius to be innovative in the application of measurement, statistics, and mathematics to socioeconomic and demographic phenomena. As a physician he related his knowledge of health and disease to these phenomena in what in the modern context would be called human ecology or social epidemiology. These relationships and their measurement were employed to establish an objective set of data which could be analyzed for the purpose of rational public policy planning by the state. This scientific approach to public policy places Petty squarely in the context of modern epidemiologic and public health practice and marks the initiation of a major use of the epidemiologic method.

Sir William Petty, 1623-1687.

English Mercantilist, founder of "political arithmetic"

William Petty, "the most rational man in England", as Samuel Pepys called him, or a "frivolous, grasping, unprincipled adventurer" as Karl Marx (1859) preferred,  was born the son of a clothier in Romsey, Hampshire.  Petty's early education was rather spotty until he ran away from home and took up as a job as a cabin boy on a merchant vessel at the age of 13.  Petty broke his leg aboard ship the very next year and, as per the custom of the time,  was marooned on the coast of Normandy.  The injured boy was picked up by French Jesuit clerics who, impressed by his intelligence, admitted him to their college in Caen, paying for his upkeep themselves.  The better part of Petty's education, particularly in mathematics, was acquired here.

William Petty eventually returned to England where, after working for a short spell drafting sea charts, enlisted for a stint in the Royal Navy in 1640.  In 1643, as the Civil War between King and Parliament raged, Petty joined the wave of English refugees in the Netherlands and thereafter France.  This was probably the most enchanted time of Petty's life.  He pursued a variety of endeavors, working for an optician in Amsterdam, studying anatomy at Leyden, and consorting with other exiled luminaries. Most notable was Petty's stay in Paris as private secretary to Thomas Hobbes, through whom Petty was introduced to the bubbling intellectual milieu of the French capital, most notably the circle of Abbé Mersenne.  It in during this sojourn that Petty absorbed the tidings of the scientific method and empiricism, which he would soon himself carry into economics.

In 1646,  Petty returned to England to put his late father's affairs in order.  After a failed attempt at selling his invention of a double-writing instrument, Petty gravitated to Oxford and co

1895 book by Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice

The Life of Sir William Petty 1623–1687 is a book, written by Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, and published in 1895. It is a biography of Sir William Petty, the 17th-century scientist, known for his inventions, his charting of large parts of Ireland, in the Down Survey, and his publications on many different topics, like "political arithmetic" and political economy.

Bibliographical information

Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond (1895). The Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687: one of the first Fellows of the Royal Society, sometime Secretary to Henry Cromwell, Maker of the 'Down Survey' of Ireland, Author of 'Political Arithmetic' &c. - chiefly derived from private documents hitherto unpublished. . London: John Murray. OL 7114345M. OCLC 222596028, 906487407, 63403054 – via Wikisource. 335 p.

Fitzmaurice founded his biography of Sir William Petty largely on the manuscripts in the so-called 'Bowood' papers. The papers originally belonging to Sir William Petty passed to his grandson, John Petty, 1st Earl of Shelburne (1706–1761), who bought Bowood House in Wiltshire, England in 1754.

The letters written by Sir William Petty to Sir Robert Southwell (1635–1702) were later added to the Bowood papers by the 3rd Marquis of Lansdowne.

Apart from the Bowood papers, Fitzmaurice also studied manuscripts in the British Museum, in the Bodleian Library and in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin.

The biographer: Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice

Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice (1846–1935), also named Edmond George Petty-Fitzmaurice, was a descendant of William Petty and a liberal politician. He also published a biography of his great-grandfather, William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne in 1912, biographies of Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville (in 1905) and of Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (in 1901), and some theatre pl

English economist and philosopher (1623–1687)

For other people named William Petty, see William Petty (disambiguation).

Sir William PettyFRS (26 May 1623 – 16 December 1687) was an English economist, physician, scientist and philosopher. He first became prominent serving Oliver Cromwell and the Commonwealth in Ireland. He developed efficient methods to survey the land that was to be confiscated and given to Cromwell's soldiers. He also remained a significant figure under King Charles II and King James II, as did many others who had served Cromwell.

Petty was also a scientist, inventor, and merchant, a charter member of the Royal Society, and briefly a member of the Parliament of England. However, he is best remembered for his theories on economics and his methods of political arithmetic. He was knighted in 1661.

Life

Early life

Petty was born in London, where his father and grandfather were clothiers. He was a precocious and intelligent youth and in 1637 became a cabin boy. His readiness to provide caricatures of fellow crew members won him few friends. He also learnt of his defective sight when he failed to spot a landmark he had been told to look for. The captain, who had by this time seen the landmark from the deck for himself "drubbed him with a cord". He was subsequently set ashore in Normandy after breaking his leg on board. Afte