Edward Anthony Wrigley

Sir Tony Wrigley held many professorships such as, Lecturer of Geography at the University of Cambridge, Professor of Population Studies at LSE, Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Professor of Economic History at Cambridge, Master at Corpus Christi College, and President at British Academy. Wrigley wrote extensively on the population history of England between the mid-sixteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and on the relationship between short-term and secular changes in major economic and demographic variables during this period. This work reflected an underlying interest in the circumstances that gave rise to the industrial revolution in England, and more generally in the transition between 'organic' economies (those dependent almost exclusively on the productivity of the land and animate energy resources) and those making extensive use of mineral raw materials and fossil fuels. He was the recipient of the 2005 Leverhulme Medal and Prize awarded by the British Academy. His publications included, Poverty, Progress and Population, "English Population History from Family Reconstitution, The Industrial Revolutions, Continuity, Chance and Change, People, Cities and Wealth: The Transformation of Traditional Society, The Works of Thomas Robert Malthus.