Henry Higgs

Abstract

The particular services of Henry Higgs to the Royal Economic Society deserve a separate note in this Journal.¹ On February 7 1888, when he was only 23 years old, Higgs wrote to Foxwell: ‘The contemplated English journal will have me judice an immediate army of readers. I have often thought that an Economic Society, focussing some of the interests which now lie between the Statistical Society, the British Association, the Institute of Bankers, the Political Economy Club, the Contemporary and other Reviews, etc., might be a very useful organisation; but I am content to carry a musket in the ranks and to leave plans of campaign to my superior officers.’ He was an original member of the Society on its foundation in 1890 and contributed to the first volume of the Journal in 1891. But his more intimate association with its management, which continued for nearly 50 years until his death, began at the end of the Society’s second year in 1892. At the outset Edgeworth was Secretary of the Society as well as sole Editor of the Journal. In 1892, however, Higgs succeeded him as Secretary, and in 1896 joined him on the editorial side as Assistant Editor. His tenure of both offices and his close association with Edgeworth continued until 1905, when, on his becoming the Prime Minister’s Private Secretary, ‘the pressure of higher official duties’ (as it was put in the Journal at the time) led to his retirement from them. He remained on the Council until the end of his life.