Author: Pryme, George
Biography:
PRYME, George (1781-1868: ODNB)
The first professor of political economy at Cambridge (or any other British university), he was born on 4 Apr. 1781 and baptised on 29 Aug. at Cottingham, Yorkshire. His father Christopher Pryme, a merchant in Hull, died in 1784 and George, the only surviving child, moved to Nottinghamshire with his mother Alice (Dinsdale) Pryme. There he attended private schools before going to Hull Grammar School and then to Trinity College, Cambridge (matric. 1799, BA 1803, Fellow 1805, MA 1806). At Cambridge his nickname was Prize Pryme for all the awards he won, notably the Browne Medal (twice), the Members’ Prize, and the Seatonian Prize. At the same time he was reading law at Lincoln’s Inn, where he was admitted in 1803 and called to the bar in 1806. He practised for a time in London but soon returned to Cambridge and took up his practice in town and on the Norfolk circuit. On 30 Aug. 1813 he married Jane Townley Thackeray (1788-1871), daughter of a surgeon, at St. Andrew the Great, Cambridge; they had two children. In 1816, while maintaining his law practice, he began lecturing on political economy at Cambridge and published his Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on Political Economy (4th edn. 1859). He delivered a series of lectures every year until 1863: the university made him a professor in 1828 and retained the chair after his retirement. A reformer in most of the spheres he moved in, Pryme served successfully as MP for Cambridge from 1832 to 1841 but had to give up parliament because of the toll on his health. In 1847 he purchased an estate at Wistow, Huntingdonshire, where he carried out improvements and became a local magistrate. He died at Wistow on 2 Dec. 1868, leaving an estate of under £12,000 and bequeathing his books and pamphlets on political economy to the university. (ODNB 23 Nov. 2023; ACAD; findmypast.com 23 Nov. 2023; Cambridge Chronicle and Journal 5 Dec. 1868)
Other Names:
- G. Pryme