Provided by the Royal Economic Society, this website has been designed to house a project to create and update an electronic version of a finding aid originally published in 1975 as Economists' Papers 1750-1950; A Guide to Archive and other Manuscript Sources for the History of British and Irish Economic Thought.
The Economists' Papers Directory contains a finding list of personal papers and correspondence of the most distinguished British economists, as well as a considerable number of lesser contributors to the subject in one or other of its forms. The Directory listings comprise all those cases where a significant body of material is known to exist, whatever its content. Indeed, in a few cases, such as Isaac Butt and Fleeming Jenkin, little or nothing of what is listed is directly economic in content.
The individuals listed include personalities from the universities, banking, business, politics, the Civil Service, journalism and other fields. The directory will therefore be useful not only to specialist historians of economics, but also to all concerned with the role of economic ideas in political debate, public and private decision-making, and in the formation of public opinion.
Although the information assembled here will be of special use to historians of economic thought and practice, it may also be of interest to other kinds of historian, social, political, and intellectual; indeed, to all those concerned with the wider role of economic ideas in political debate and the formation of public opinion and policy.