Stamp, Josiah Charles, 1st Baron Stamp of Shortlands

The Cobden Club prize winning essay for 1912 The taxation of the "unearned increment" by Josiah Charles Stamp.

Josiah Charles Stamp was born in Kilburn, London on 21 June 1880. Stamp's formal education ended when he was sixteen. In 1896 he entered the Civil Service as a boy clerk in the Inland Revenue Department, where he rose to the position of assistant secretary to the Board of Inland Revenue at the age of thirty six. Stamp obtained an external degree in economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1916. His thesis was published as British Incomes and Property in 1916 and launched his academic career. In 1919 he served on the Royal Commission on Income Tax and in the same year he joined Nobel Industries Ltd as secretary and director. In 1926 he became the president of the executive of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway and two years later he was appointed director of the Bank of England. He combined this work with serving on national and international committees, as well as boards of enquiry. In 1926 he served on the statutory commission of the University of London and in 1926 he served as a governor and vice chairman of the LSE. Stamp also held lectureships in economics at several universities, including Cambridge, Oxford and Liverpool. Throughout his working life he published widely on economics. Stamp was created CBE in 1918, KBE in 1920, GBE in 1924 and GCB in 1935. In 1938 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Stamp of Shortlands, Kent. He also received honorary degrees from numerous universities both at home and abroad. Stamp died on 16 April 1941.

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The British Library of Political and economic Science, University of London, holds correspondence with William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge, [1922-1940], and letters to Edwin Cannan, 1919-1933; the British Library, London, has correspondence with Macmillans Publishers, 1919-1940 (Ref: Add MS 55 207).

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