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

Mary Paley Group Study Room Launch 

by Clare Trowell & Sue Woods

On Friday 22nd April at 2.30pm The Marshall Library launched the new group study room for students. The Reading Room at the Marshall Library is a great silent study space for individual work and the Social Area is welcoming and relaxing but the Library was missing a sensible quiet study area for groups, so this was my first initiative as Librarian to create a useable group study space within the Marshall Library. 

It was a great event - attended by a good number of students and involved bunting and free cake in the Library Social Area, as well as a speech from me!! 

We decided to name the room after Mary Paley, the wife of Alfred Marshall - she was also the first female librarian and an accomplished economist and scholar in her own right. Sue Woods has written a short history of Mary's life:

In 1871 Mary was one of the first 5 women admitted to the University of Cambridge. She spent 3 years at Newnham College studying for the Moral Sciences Tripos. Mary and 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. Mary was, however, invited to become the first woman lecturer in economics at Cambridge and she soon took over the teaching of economics from her former teacher, Alfred Marshall. In 1876 the couple become engaged and they were married the following year. From then on Mary devoted her life to Alfred, and became subservient to him, supporting him in his research and the publication of his work.

Together Mary and Alfred wrote "Economics of Industry", which was published in 1879 under both their names. Even though it was highly rated by Keynes and other leading economists of the day, Alfred disliked the book and allowed it to go out of print, without a murmur from Mary. We were fortunate enough to be able to borrow the first edition of the book from the University Library Rare Books department, complete with annotations by Mary herself.

When Alfred died in 1924 he left many of his books and donated much of his money to the library. Mary acted as a volunteer librarian and looked after the collection for nearly 20 years, until she retired at the age of 87. From 1925 until her death in 1944 she gave £250 annually to the library, and also bequeathed £10,000 to the University for the "development and increased usefulness of the Marshall Library". 

Throughout her life Mary enjoyed painting and produced a bound volume of watercolours, which was passed to the Library for safe keeping. We were also able to display Mary's book of watercolours in the new group study room at the Launch Event.

It was good to get such great feedback from the students about the standard of the new facilities at the launch. The room includes a managed desktop PC, a connection for a laptop as well as a flipchart, pens and magnets for group work.

The room is available to book online via the Marshall Library website (in the same way as Bloomberg & Datastream). The room is available for booking during library opening hours in term time but access to the room closes an hour before library closing time.

The room is bookable for groups of up to 5 for 1-2 hours at any one time and there are some basic ground rules which we ask you to abide by:

• The Mary Paley Room is bookable by students for group work only and is not available for private study
• The room may be booked for up to 2 hours (slots) at any one time
• There will be a 15 minute grace period for each booking. After this time the booking will lapse and the slot may be offered to another group
• Please make sure you leave the room as you found it
• No food and drink is allowed in the Mary Paley Room

I really hope students find this new group study space at the Marshall Library useful and I welcome any feedback you may have. 

Clare

Austin Robinson - World War One aviator - Part 2

Austin arrived at RNAS Cranwell in mid June 1917 for advanced flight training. This consisted of one week each on the Avro 504, the BE2c and the Bristol Scout. During this time he would also have received instruction in advanced navigation, aerial photography, use and maintenance of machine guns and basic bomb dropping. He successfully passed out as a flight sub-lieutenant on July 11th and was posted to RNAS Killingholme on the Humber for further training on seaplanes.

A photo of a Bristol Scout taken by Austin at Cranwell (Austin Robinson Papers 12/5/4)

Killingholme was both a seaplane school and an operational station and it might have been because of this that few aircraft were available for training purposes and, as a result, Austin's opportunities to fly were very intermittent. Nevertheless he passed out successfully on August 10th and was then sent to RNAS Calshott on Southampton Water to complete his seaplane training.

An aerial photo taken by Austin of the flying boat slipways at Killingholme (Austin Robinson Papers 12/5/5)

Austin was not impressed with Calshott. It was in his words, a 'complete disaster'. Firstly, there were hardly any aircraft available for flight training and, secondly, there was a massive back log of personnel waiting to be passed out and assigned elsewhere. The situation was so grave that when it became known that a high ranking RNAS officer would be inspecting the station Austin and his fellow officers decided to mount '... the nearest thing one could have to a demonstration'. In order to draw attention to the enormous number of unposted officers in training everybody assembled in one massive long queue for lunch at the mess hall. The visiting officer obviously took note and all personnel were posted the very next day. 

Austin, who had developed considerable affection for twin engined seaplanes, was delighted to find himself posted back to Killingholme for operational training.

SHF

Austin Robinson – World War One aviator - Part 1

Most people are probably unaware that Sir Austin Robinson, famous Cambridge economist, was an aviator with the Royal Naval Air Service during World War One. As we are now in the midst of the 100th anniversary commemorations relating to this conflict I thought it might be interesting to draw upon some of the documents and unique unpublished photographs held in the Marshall Library archives to illustrate the flying career of this prominent Cambridge economist. In this and subsequent posts I'll describe his entry into military aviation, his training and experiences of combat and, finally, his time as a RNAS test pilot.

Austin had just entered the Upper Sixth at Marlborough College when war broke out in 1914. He remained there for a further two years before applying to the RNAS - a decision prompted, no doubt, by his fascination with all things mechanical - he had dismantled and rebuilt an old Humber motorcycle at school - and a desire for speed.

Late in 1916 he was accepted for pilot training but was allowed to defer joining up until after sitting the scholarship examination at Cambridge in which he won a scholarship in classics to Christ's. In February 1917 he was appointed Probationary Flight Officer and ordered to report to HMS President - the RNAS establishment at Chrystal Palace - for basic training.

Austin's letter of appointment as Probationary Flight Officer with the RNAS (Austin Robinson Papers 1/2/1)

Austin’s training lasted for three weeks and consisted of parade ground drill interspersed with instruction in the theory of flight. The latter was performed by instructors with white beards who "... were much too old to have flown, and what they taught us was very little".  However doubtful he may have been about the value of the training he received at Crystal Palace, Austin does not seem to have let it dent his enthusiasm and his conduct there was described as being "very satisfactory”.

Austin's certificate of conduct from Crystal Palace (Austin Robinson Papers 1/2/2)

In March 1917 Austin was posted to the main flying training station for RNAS pilots at Chingford aerodrome. During its operational career it helped to train over 1,000 naval pilots. Opened in May 1915 Chingford aerodrome was described as 'a strip of fogbound and soggy meadowland ... between a reservoir and a sewage farm'. It was not an auspicious location for a station whose primary purpose was the initial training of neophyte aviators. The geographical constraints of the site made landings particularly difficult and a small boat was permanently moored on the nearby King George V Reservoir for the rescue of pilots who routinely crashed into its waters. Nearby Epping Forest provided another natural hazard for unwary pilots.

Austin's flying training was typical of that offered to may other RNAS trainees at Chingford. He took to the air for the first time as a passenger in a Graham White 'Boxkite' on the 31st March 1917. There followed about two months of dual instruction which culminated in Austin being allowed to taxi the aircraft alone and to make a few short 'hops'. The latter involved removing a few spark plugs from the aircraft's engine to reduce its power so that pilots could open the throttle and lift themselves, briefly, into the war within a single length of the aerodrome. On May 30th Austin made his first solo flight, although the exact duration is not known.

Rare photograph of a Maurice Farman Longhorn taken by Austin at Chingford in 1917 (Austin Robinson Papers 12/5/4)

A Henri Farman biplane flown by Austin (Austin Robinson Papers 12/5/4)

In June Austin moved onto flying the Maurice Farman 'Longhorn' and then the much more capable Avro 504. With a top speed of nearly 100 mph the Avro 504 was Austin's first experience of an aircraft with real power and altitude performance. Although by 1917 Avro 504s were being used primarily as trainers or to equip Home Defence squadrons the RNAS had originally used them in a front line capacity. In November 1914 four 504s had successfully bombed the Zeppelin works at Friedrichshafen - the first ever bombing raid on Germany. Austin does not appear to have had any problems learning to fly the Avro and he went solo on it within two weeks.

An extremely rare photo of an Avro 504e taken by Austin at Chingford, 1917 (Austin Robinson Papers 12/5/4)

A much more common Avro 504k, Chingford, 1917 (Austin Robinson Papers 12/5/4)

 That Austin completed his flying training without any apparent mishaps must be regarded as something of an achievement. Although the aircraft being flown at Chingford were very slow by modern standards flight training at this time  was notoriously dangerous, and Austin's sojourn there coincided with a period dubbed 'bloody April' when an above average number of fatalities occurred. In fact, seven trainee pilots lost their lives between April and September 1917.

Another of Austin's photos, this time illustrating one of the many accidents that occurred while he was at Chingford (Austin Robinson Papers 12/5/4)

Although there is no detailed record of Austin's performance as an aviator at Chingford, his certificate of conduct for this period indicates that he conducted himself 'satisfactorily'. This was sufficient to ensure his posting, in June 1917, to RNAS Cranwell for advanced pilot training.

 

Austin's certificate of conduct from 'H.M.S. President II' which was the RNAS name for Chingford at this time (Austin Robinson Papers 1/2/2)

SHF

Cambridge Economists: Marjorie Tappan Hollond

The Cambridge Economists series on this blog will feature scholars who have had some kind of connection with Cambridge’s Faculty of Economics; some of these will be famous, others are unknown, or have been forgotten.

I am neither the greatest cataloguer nor a librarian who gets excited about cataloguing: after all, cataloguing is primarily helpful for readers to find what they want, and for librarians to know what is held in ‘their’ library. Because there is a basic record somewhere in the world for almost all the books I have had to catalogue so far, it is primarily a fairly uneventful affair. When I recently was about to catalogue a copy of D.H. Robertson’s Money, I found that we already had a copy of an edition in the library (Marshall Library: Rare Books 31 A 13). As the original record of this copy was not very good, I had to consult it. When I opened it, I saw the following pencil annotation:

Marshall Library book: [Rare Book] 31 A 13, showing M. Tappan Hollond's name

Because I could not quite read the name, I started googling, and with the right spelling I found eventually a page from the Archives hub, which told me that someone called Marjorie Tappan Hollond (1895-1977) had been a lecturer in Economics at Cambridge University from 1926, as well as being a Director of Studies and Lecturer at Girton College from 1923. She also was a Fellow from 1924. Some archival material relating to Tappan Hollond is held by the Girton College Archive (GCPP TAPPAN HOLLOND).

Tappan Hollond was born in New York in 1895, and came to the UK at the end of the First World War. She married Henry Arthur Hollond in 1929. Tappan Hollond published articles and reviews. She was a contemporary and colleague of the (now) more famous Joan Robinson, and seems to have been more interested in teaching than in publishing economic theories (compare to Marjorie Shepherd Turner, Joan Robinson and the Americans, M. E. Sharpe, 1989, pp. 22-24, Marshall Library: B10 G 26).

To give you a flavour of Tappan Hollond’s writing and thinking, I quote from her review of The Law and the Constitution by W. I. Jennings (review published in The Cambridge Law Journal, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1934), p. 300):

‘Legal study and the several branches of political and economic science are conspicuous by their absence from the volume. Presumably the lawyer and the economist proved, each in his way, too hard a nut for even the most competent of editors to crack. No meat, at least, has come forth. But workers in these fields are not to infer that the book is not for them unless, indeed, they claim to be exceptionally dull dogs or all-knowing ones. […] The book as a whole serves, as its editor intended, to break down the principle of 'the closed shop,' and to unite its readers upon the common ground of good learning.
TAPPAN HOLLOND.’

So don’t underestimate the work of a cataloguer! S/he might discover an economist who has been forgotten!

CG