Writing in the margins: Mary Paley Marshall on International Women's Day 2022

 Mary Paley Marshall was Alfred Marshall's wife and the founder of the Marshall Library of Economics, after Alfred's death in 1924. She was the first female librarian and an accomplished economist and scholar in her own right. 

In 1871 Mary was one of the first 5 women admitted to Newnham College, where she spent 3 years studying for the Moral Sciences Tripos. Mary and a fellow student, Amy Bulley, were the first women to be allowed to take the men's Tripos. Even though Mary passed all her exams, as a woman, she was not permitted to graduate. Nevertheless she was invited to become the first woman lecturer in Economics at the University of Cambridge and she soon took over the teaching from her former teacher, Alfred Marshall.

In 1876 Mary and Alfred became engaged and they were married the following year. Due to limitations on marriage for Cambridge Dons at that time Mary and Alfred relocated to Bristol, where Alfred was offered a post. Together Mary and Alfred wrote the Economics of Industry, which was published in 1879 under both their names. The book was highly rated by John Maynard Keynes and other leading Economists of the day. Alfred, however, disliked the book and allowed it to go out of print. There was no evident protest from Mary about this. Later Alfred's own seminal work, Principles of Economics, was published in 1890 under Alfred's sole name. However, we are in possession of one of the proof books and we can see how much Mary contributed to the editing of this great work from her handwriting in the margins.

Take a look at a digitised proof book of Principles of Economics in Cambridge Digital Library here:

https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/marshall/1

When Alfred died in 1924 he left many of his books and donated much of his money to the library. Mary acted as volunteer librarian and looked after the collection for nearly 20 years, until she retired at the age of 87.

Throughout her life Mary enjoyed painting and produced a bound volume of watercolours, which was passed to the Marshall Library for safe keeping.

Much more than teaching... Marshall Library's extensive and eclectic research collections by Simon Frost, Deputy Librarian

 

It’s often asserted that the Marshall Library is a teaching library and, during Full Term, this is undoubtedly the case. To suggest, however, that it is solely a teaching library belies the contributions made – and being made – by it’s extensive and eclectic collections of archives and rare books to the work of the numerous researchers who visit the Marshall from all over the World. The majority of these visits occur during vacation and illustrate the way in which the focus of the library changes from teaching to research support with archival enquires, supervision and scanning occupying proportionately more staff time.

The Marshall Library archives consist primarily of the notes, correspondence and photographs of Professor Alfred Marshall (22 boxes) and Professor Austin Robinson (108 boxes). Other Cambridge economists – Pigou, Foxwell and Jevons – are also represented together with extensive lecture notes produced by various undergraduates in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. There are also some surprises. Mary Marshall, Alfred’s wife and economist in her own right, was also an accomplished water colourist and the collection includes numerous portfolios of her work. Austin Robinson became a pilot during the First World War and flew flying boats with the Royal Naval Air Service and later with Shorts Brothers as a test pilot. He was a keen photographer his archives contain hundreds of unique photographs early aircraft and airships.

Mary Paley's watercolour album                                                

Photos from Austin Robinson's papers

Accompanying these archival materials are many thousands of rare books which originated from the working collections of Marshall, Keynes and other prominent Cambridge economists. Many of these contain significant amounts of marginalia or inter-lea
ved notes. Again, there are surprises.  An inscription in one tome indicates that it was retrieved Herman Goering’s personal train at Berchtesgaden in 1945 and was donated to the library by Nicholas Kaldor who, at the time, was Chief of the Economic Planning Staff of the US Strategic Bombing Survey.

Nicholas Kaldor

For many years these archival collections were poorly organised and widely distributed throughout the Faculty of Economics until, in the late 1990s, the then Marshall Librarian, Rowland Thomas, secured funding from the National Bank of Italy for an archivist to undertake their organization and cataloguing. At the same time the rare books were subject to a programme of retrospective cataloguing in order to make them more accessible and to highlight any notable annotations.

The simple expedient of uploading pdf files of the newly created archival catalogues to the Marshall Library website in the early 2000s garnered considerable interest amongst economic historians worldwide and material in the archives has been used in the production of at least sixteen books ranging from biographies of Marshall, Pigou and Fay to books about flying boats in the Royal Naval Air Service. The most recent publication we’ve provided assistance with is Economics of Visual Art: Market Practice and Market Resistance / Amy Whitaker (2021). We’ve also identified numerous chapters in books and journal articles that have been produced using resources in the Marshall archives.

The Marshall Library has never really been solely a teaching library. The dichotomy between its teaching and research responsibilities has always been there and it’s what continues to make it an interesting place in which to work.

The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge - Exhibition Launch 15th October 2019

I was very privileged to be invited to attend the launch of the University Libraries new exhibition:
The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge, which marks 150 years since the founding of the Cambridge's first women's college. It tells the stories of lives of women at Cambridge and the fight for equal educational rights.

You can read more about the exhibition, curated by Dr. Lucy Delap and Dr. Ben Griffin on the Cambridge University Library website.

I was lucky to be invited to the launch as the Marshall Library has contributed to Rising Tide exhibition by lending our Roger Fry portrait of Mary Paley Marshall 1850-1944, the first librarian, benefactor and founder of the Marshall Library of Economics. I am very proud, as Marshall Librarian, to see Mary hanging in pride of place along with other key portraits of Cambridge women in the University Library main corridor.

Mary Paley Marshall. Courtesy of the Marshall Library, University of Cambridge.

Mary Paley was one of the first women to study the Moral Sciences Tripos at Newnham College, as well as one of the first to take the exam. She was taught by Alfred Marshall, whom she later married. She was also the first woman lecturer in Economics. She could not graduate, of course, and, unfortunately died before women were granted this right at Cambridge in 1948. John Maynard Keynes and Austin Robinson commissioned this portrait by Roger Fry in honour of her work for the Faculty of Economics. She sat for this portrait in Keynes' rooms at Kings. This is actually the second portrait, which was accepted. The first portrait painted by Roger Fry was not a good enough likeness!

It was a great evening with some excellent speeches, Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell gave a very moving speech about her discovery of pulsars, while studying for her PhD at Murray Edwards College (then New Hall) at Cambridge. It was also a wonderful opportunity to meet some amazing Women at Cambridge, past and present. I particularly enjoyed the story behind the "Behave Badly" badge: Lisa Jardine, a renowned historian who studied at Newnham College 1963-73 used to hand out these badges to women friends - those she though would benefit from them. One such badge was worn by Jane Tillier, first laywoman chaplin at Jesus College in 1984 and Jane used to wear it under her robes. The exhibition is on at the University Library until January 2020 and has involved Libraries and Archives from all over Cambridge - I thoroughly recommend visiting it.

Clare Trowell

Marshall Librarian

The Return of Alfred Marshall’s Book V, Ch.VII of Principles of Economics (annotated) from Japan

Prof. Shoichiro Uemiya visited the Marshall Library Archive on 9 March, 2017 to return a book that belonged to Alfred Marshall. The book appears to have been in Japan for some time and possibly since the 1920s. 

As Prof. Uemiya  explains in his own words:

“I am an Emeritus Professor of Kobe University in Japan. My major field is the history of economic thought. I studied for a year (1977-78) as an Honorary Research Fellow under the late Prof. R.D.C.Black at Queen’s University, Belfast.

Just before my retirement in March 2012 Mrs. Taeko Minakata, the wife of my supervisor the late Prof. Kanichi Minakata (1923-1985), asked me to return this book, which is part of Marshall’s Principles of Economics. The book contains pages with bound-in pages of written script – possibly in the handwriting of Marshall himself. Her husband told her that he received this particular book from his old-time supervisor Prof. Yasaburo Sakamoto (1894-1981). Prof. Minakata’s major field was Marshall’s Economic Theory. He came to Cambridge for a year (1962-63) to study and stayed at St. Edmund’s House. However, Mrs. Minakata has no idea when or where Prof. Sakamoto got the book. He did travel between 1919-1927 in England, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland.”

The book comprises Book V, Ch. VII  pp. 449-610 of Principles of Economics. Many of the pages include handwritten insertions in coloured pencils and ink. There is also a stamp showing 15 Jan. 90, University Press, Cambridge. Clare Trowell, Marshall Librarian and Simon Frost, Deputy Librarian can confirm that the inserted pages are in Marshall’s handwriting as the Library Rare Books collections contain many examples of Marshall’s handwriting and it is clearly recognisable.

The Marshall Library Archive contains several photographs, including an intriguing picture of Mrs Mary Paley Marshall entertaining a Japanese visitor and his wife at her house, Balliol Croft, in 1928. This visitor is Prof. Tsunao Miyajima (1884-1965) who translated the Memoirs of Alfred Marshall (1925) into Japanese. Between 1919-1928 Prof. Miyajima was Prof. at the Kansai University, Osaka. In 1928 he also visited France. Between 1948-1952 he was Chief Director of Kansai University. There does not appear to be a link between Prof. Miyajima , Prof. Sakamoto and the mysterious annotated book that has just been returned to the Marshall Library Archives.

We plan to catalogue the returned book as a Rare Book and make it available to scholars of Alfred Marshall as soon as possible.

Prof. Uemiya also kindly donated a copy of his translation of the work:

The Scope and Method of Political Economy / J.N. Keynes    Marshall Library   20 F 18  http://bit.ly/2lZhbpu

History of the Marshall Library

The roots of the present Marshall Library lie in the small Moral Sciences Library created by Professor Alfred Marshall and Professor Henry Sidgwick from 1885 onwards, largely through the donation of their books for student use. This library was situated in the Divinity School opposite St John's College. Following the struggle to establish Political Economy as a subject in its own right, the Economics books were transferred to the keeping of the Special Board for Economics and Politics in 1906. In 1909 J.M. Keynes became the first formally appointed librarian of the collection, thereafter known a the Departmental Library of Economics. In that year there were only 11 Part 1 students and 8 studying for Part II.

Alfred Marshall died in 1924 leaving many of his books and money to the Library. The two collections were merged and re-named "Marshall Library of Economics" in his memory. The great expansion of the collections necessitated its move in 1925 to rooms in the former Balfour Laboratory off Downing Street. Ten years later it moved again to rooms in the recently vacated Squire Law Library premises (now the Haddon Library). Alfred's widow, Mary Paley Marshall acted as a volunteer librarian at these two locations for nearly twenty years, until she retired at the age of 87. From 1925 until her death in 1944 she gave £250 annually to the library. In addition, she bequeathed £10,000 to the University " for the development and increased usefulness of the Marshall Library". The final move to the present building in Sidgwick Avenue, which was designed by Sir Hugh Casson, took place in the early sixties.