NEWMARCH, William (1820-1882): papers

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 1060 DP001 Newmarch
Held at	: Royal Statistical Society   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://www.rss.org.uk/RSS/About/About_the_RSS/History/Archives/RSS/About_the_RSS/About_sub/History_sub/Archives.aspx ›
Full title	: NEWMARCH, William (1820-1882): papers
Date(s)	: 1753-1880
Level of description	: Collection (fonds)
Extent	: 5 boxes
Name of creator(s)	: Newmarch | William | 1820-1882 | economist and statistician

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

William Newmarch was born in Thirsk, Yorkshire, on 28 January, 1820, and was a self-educated man. He began employment as a clerk with a distributor of stamps but then moved to the Yorkshire Fire and Life Office and thence to Messrs. Leathams' banking house. Following his early marriage, in 1846 he moved to London and worked on the Morning Chronicle as well as in the management of Agra Bank. Here his knowledge of banking and business brought him into contact with the leading economists and businessmen in the City including Thomas Tooke who supported Newmarch's successful application to become a Fellow of the Statistical Society in 1847. Four years later, in 1851, he became Secretary to the Globe Insurance Company and began work with Tooke on preparing volumes 5 and 6 of the History of Prices. These were published in 1857 and quickly became classics, generally acknowledged as a continuation and development of Tooke's work rather than a simple collaboration. In 1857 he gave evidence in committee on the Bank Acts and in 1861he received the unusual honour for a businessman of being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of his achievements. The following year he became the first manager of Glyn, Mills & Co. bank where he remained until his retirement in 1881 following a stroke. Glynn, Mills & Co. provided banking facilities for more than 200 of the new railway companies as well as handling the important Canadian financial agency and Newmarch became a director of the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada. Throughout his career Newmarch was a journalist contributing articles to magazines and newspapers including the Economist, the Statist, and the Times, especially on prices, the gold supply and the movement of money. With the RSS he was Secretary from 1854 to 1861, Editor of the Journal, 1852-1862, Vice-President in 1863, and from 1871 to 1881, as well as President between 1869 and 1871 and a contributor of numerous articles to the Society's Journal. He was also a member and Secretary of the Political Economy Club, founder of the Adam Smith Club and a prime mover in establishing the Tooke Professorship at King's College London. He died at Torquay, Devon, on 23 March, 1882, and was commemorated by the establishment of the Society's Newmarch Memorial Essay and by the Newmarch Professorship of Economic Science at University College London. Publications: The New Supplies of Gold (1853); Pitt's Financial Operations (1855); A History of Prices and of the State of the Circulation during the Nine Years 1848-56 (1857).

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers of William Newmarch, 1847-1880, comprising: 1. Accounts, bills and receipts, 1753-1758, relating to prices and wages on the estates of James Buller of Morvall, Cornwall. 2. Papers re: Oxford and Cambridge examinations of W.J. Newmarch, son of William Newmarch, 1859-1862; Wm J. Newmarch letters to his father during a European tour, 1865; correspondence of Thomas Tooke with final proof of History of Prices vol.5 and other related papers, 1850s. 3. Papers and presscuttings re: electoral statistics, 1837-1857; papers and presscuttings re: trade and investments in Great Britain, France, Prussia, India and Australia, 1845-1860; notes and cuttings re: prices, circulation and exchange, 1848-1860, including text of General Prices, 1848-56; correspondence with James Pennington and Thomas Tooke, 1855-1856; banking papers and correspondence, especially with Joseph Hickson of the Grand Trunk Railway Co of Canada re: failure of Bank of Upper Canada, 1866-1870. 4. Letter from Bank of England re: gold coins, 1857, with other papers re: gold currency and circulation incl. Letters from the French Enquiry; letters, papers and legal documents re: establishment of Tooke Professorship of Economic Science and Statistics at King's College London, 1858-1860; papers re: Newmarch's election to the Royal Society, 1861, and his corresponding membership of Société de Statistique de Paris, 1861; correspondence re: Pacific Telegraph Co., 1863; correspondence and papers re: Bank of Upper Canada, 1870-1875. 5. Papers re: British Association Section F Economic Science & Statistics, 1856-61; notes for Newmarch's lectures at various meetings including Political Economy Club, Verulam and Oxford, 1870s-1880s.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

At present the papers are arranged in five boxes as listed in Scope and Content.

Conditions governing access:

Generally available to bona fide researchers.

Conditions governing reproduction:

At the discretion of the Archives Consultant and subject to copyright.

Finding aids:

Detailed box list

Archival Information

Archival history:

No information has yet been found about the deposit of these papers with the Society, however Mrs Newmarch gave a selection from her husband's library to the Society in 1883 as a memorial to him. Some of the papers were apparently organised by Miss Thorburn, Assistant Secretary to the Society, 1917-1945. The papers are currently listed according to the boxes in which they were found in 1998.

Immediate source of acquisition:

Allied Materials

Related material:

National Register of Archives: Click here to view NRA record

Publication note:

"The Death of Mr. William Newmarch" Journal of the Statistical Society of London, Vol. 45, No. 1. (Mar., 1882), pp. 115-121; R A Ashbee, "William Newmarch and Glyns", The Three Banks Review, no.122 (June 1979) pp. 49-60.

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Compiled by Janet Foster, Archives Consultant, RSS.

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
November 2000