Profile Major Works Resources

Gregory King, 1648-1712.

English 17th C. political arithmetician

Gregory King was a surveyor, mapmaker and herald of Lancaster. King's 1695 survey of taxes and their geographical and demographic distribution in Great Britain include some of the first proper estimates of population in Great Britain.  But it is King's 1696 manuscript, Natural and Political Observations, that is justly celebrated.  It is a comprehensive examination of family income and expenditure, greatly expanding upon and correcting Petty's original estimates of the income and wealth of the UK.  It also contains the comparisons of the statistics with Holland and France.

Gregory King's works remained unpublished until George Chalmers unearthed his 1696 manuscript and published it as an appendix to his own 1802 Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Great Britain.   Nonetheless, back in the 1690s, King's friend, Charles D'Avenant. had access to his work and used King's figures throughout his own work.  Most famously, D'Avenant credits King for the source of the data on the relationship between price of wheat and defect in the harvest by which D'Avenant.(1699) famously constructs what can be regarded as the first econometric estimation of a demand curve.  However, the original source in King's work has not been found and some consider the estimate to be D'Avenant's own.  (see King-Davenant Law).

 

  

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Major Works of Gregory King

  • A Scheme of the Rates and Duties Granted to His Majesty upon Marriages, Births and Burials, 1695.
  • Natural and Political Observations and Conclusions upon the State and Condition of England, 1696.
    • 1804 edition, Natural and Political Observations and Conclusions upon the State and Condition of England 1696, by Gregory King, Esq., Lancaster Herald, to which is prefixed a life of the author, edited by George Chalmers [reprinted as appendix. to 1802 ed of  Chalmers's Estimate, p.405 [av])] [1804 ed of Estimate,  p.29]  [1810 new edition]
  • Of the Naval Trade of Great Britain, 1697.

 
HET

 
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Resources on Gregory King

  • "Notices of the Life of Gregory King", by George Chalmers, editor, Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Great Britain, 1802 [p.385 av] [1804, p.9]
  • "Chalmers's Gregory King", 1810, British Critic, p.191
  • "King, Gregory"  in C. Coquelin and G.U. Guillaumin, editors, 1852, Dictionnaire de l'économie politique [1894 ed.]
  • "King, Gregory"  in R.H. Inglis Palgrave, editor, 1894-1901 Dictionary of Political Economy [1901 ed.]
  • "King, Gregory" in Leslie Stephen & Stephen Lee, editor, 1885-901 Dictionary of National Biography [1908-09 ed]
  • Gregory King at Wiki
 
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