Thomas Malthus was not averse to conflict with other thinkers. He was interested in population size and economics. 
  • Born: Dorking --- 17th February 1766
  • Died: Bath --- 23rd December 1834
  • Political Economist
  • Pioneer of population science and economics
  • Cambridge --- Ninth Wrangler 1788
  • Fellow of Jesus College
  • Fellow of the Royal Society
  • Educated: University of Cambridge
Although Plato, Aristotle, Benjamin Franklin and David Hume had all developed ideas about population size, it was Thomas Malthus who produced the first cogent argument about the growth of populations. He argued that a population has a natural tendency to increase faster than the means to sustaining it. His essay on this subject, Essay on the Principle of Population, was first published anonymously in 1798.

Malthus also published Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent in 1815 and Principles of Political Economy in 1820.

Last revised 11 November 2006