Hutchison, T.W. 1912-2007 (T. Wilmot Hutchison, Terence Hutchison, Terence Wilmot Hutchison)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born August 13, 1912, in Bournemouth, England; died October 5, 2007, in Winchester, England. Economist, historian, educator, and author. Hutchison taught economics at the University of Bonn in Germany until the outbreak of World War II, then he taught at a training school for teachers in Baghdad, Iraq, until 1941, when the war caught up with him again. After the war he moved back to England, where he taught at the University of Hull and the London School of Economics and Political Science, part of the University of London, until 1956, when he settled at the University of Birmingham for the rest of his career. He retired as Mitsui Professor of Economics in 1978, then continued to teach classes in the history of economics until 1980. A few years later, his historical research resulted in Before Adam Smith: The Emergence of Political Economy, 1662-1776 (1988), which offered a rare look at the field (not yet a discipline) of economics prior to Smith's publication of The Wealth of Nations. Aside from A Review of Economic Doctrines, 1870-1929 (1953), most of Hutchison's other writings analyzed the economic theory and methodology of his own century, and some provoked controversy among scholars and philosophers of economics. One of these was Economics and Economic Policy in Britain, 1946-1966, in which he critiqued the published commentaries of his peers. He was particularly critical of theories that were not specifically aimed at improving economic policy. Altogether Hutchison wrote at least a dozen books, including The Uses and Abuses of Economics: Contentious Essays on History and Method (1994), and On the Methodology of Economics and the Formalist Revolution (2000).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Times (London, England), December 5, 2007, p. 71.