R. H. TAWNEY, English economist, was born in Calcutta, India, in 1880. He was educated at Rugby, and at Balliol College, Oxford. Shortly after leaving Oxford, he became a teacher of the classes for adult workers organized by the Workers Educational Association, of which he was president for sixteen years, and is now vice-president. From 1906 to 1908 he was an assistant in economics at Glasgow University, then for six years he was a teacher for tutorial classes of the Committee of Oxford University. He held a Chair of Economic History at the London School of Economics.
Tawney was a member of the British Labour Party since 1906, and served on various public bodies, including the Coal Commission (1919), the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education (1913-1931), and the University Grants Committee (1943-1946). In 1942 he spent several months in Washington as economic and sociological adviser to the British Embassy. Tawney's three best-known books. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, The Acquisitive Society, and Equality, gained for him an international reputation. Among his other books are: The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century; Land and Labour in China; and English Economic History.
He died on 16th January 1962 at the age of 81.
