Foxwell, Herbert Somerton (1849–1936)

Abstract

Born at Shepton Mallet, Somerset, Foxwell received his early education at home and then at schools in Taunton. He matriculated into the University of London in 1866 and received his BA in 1868. He entered St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1868. After being placed Senior in the Moral Science Tripos in 1870, he won the Whewell Scholarship in International Law in 1872. He was elected a Fellow of the College in 1874. Under the old Statutes he was forced to vacate his fellowship when he married in 1898, but was able to resume it in 1905 and retained it until his death in 1936. From 1875 until 1905 he served as College Lecturer. At first he taught the whole area of the Moral Sciences, but while Marshall was at Bristol from 1877 until 1884, Foxwell taught courses in economics. When Marshall became Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge in 1885, he quickly overshadowed Foxwell both at St John’s and in Cambridge economics generally. Appointed as a University Extension Lecturer in 1874, Foxwell taught widely in the North of England, claiming that it had brought him into close contact ‘with the actual conditions of practical life’. In 1876 he became a Lecturer at University College, London, and in 1881 he succeeded W.S. Jevons as its Professor of Political Economy. Despite his frequent travels to London, Foxwell remained firmly committed to Cambridge life. After his retirement from active lecturing at St John’s, he served as its Director of Economic Studies until his death. In private life, he lived a few doors from J.N. Keynes in Harvey Road and was well known in Cambridge economic circles.