Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/7



MALTHUS, THOMAS ROBERT (1766–1834), political economist, second son of Daniel Malthus, was born on 17 Feb. 1766 at his father's house, the Rookery, near Guildford. Daniel's eldest son, Sydenham. Malthus, grandfather of Colonel Sydenham Malthus, C.B., died in 1821, in his sixty-eighth year. Daniel Malthus, born in 1730, entered Queen's College, Oxford, in 1747, but did not graduate. He lived quietly among his books, and wrote some useful but anonymous pieces (, p. xxii). He had some acquaintance with Rousseau, and according to Otter became his executor. He was an ardent believer in the 'perfectibility of mankind,' as expounded by Condorcet and Godwin (ib. p. xxxviii), and some ' peculiar opinions ' about education were perhaps derived from the ' Emile.' He was impressed by his son's abilities, and undertook the boy's early education himself. He afterwards selected rather remarkable teachers. In 1776 Robert (as he was generally called) became a pupil of (1715-1804) [q. v.], well known as the author of the 'Spiritual Quixote,' 1772, a coarse satire upon the methodists. Malthus's love of 'fighting for fighting's sake,' without the least malice, and his keen sense of humour, were described by Graves to the father (ib. p. xxx), and he appears to have been afterwards a cricketer and a skater (ib. p. xxv), and fond of rowing ( Letters to Malthus, p. 158). He kept up his friendship for Graves, and attended his old schoolmaster's deathbed as a clergyman. He was afterwards a pupil of Gilbert Wakefield, who became classical master of the dissenting academy at Warrington in 1779. Malthus attended the academy for a time, and after its dissolution in 1783 remained with Wakefield till he went to college. A letter appended to Wakefield's 'Life' (ii. 454 - 63) is attributed by Mr. Bonar to Malthus, and if so Malthus highly respected his tutor, and kept up a long friendship with him. On 8 June 1784 Malthus was entered a pensioner of Jesus College, Cambridge, of which Wakefield had been a fellow, and probably began residence in October. One of his tutors was [q. v.], who, like Wakefield, became a Unitarian. Malthus read history, poetry, and modern languages, obtained prizes for Latin and Greek declamations, and was ninth wrangler in the mathematical tripos of 1788. After graduating he seems to have pursued his studies at his father's house and at Cambridge. On 10 June 1793 (not in 1797) he was elected to a fellowship at Jesus, and was one of the fellows who on 23 June 1794 made an order that the name of S. T. Coleridge should be taken off the boards unless he returned and paid his tutor's bill. He held his fellowship until his marriage, but only resided occasionally (information from the Master of Jesus). He took his M.A. degree in 1791, and in 1798 he was in holy orders, and held a curacy at Albury, Surrey. Malthus's opinions were meanwhile developing in a direction not quite accordant with those of his father and his teachers. He wrote a pamphlet called 'The Crisis' in 1796, but at his father's request refrained from printing it. Some passages are given by Otter and Empson. He attacked Pitt from the whig point of view, but supported the poor-law schemes then under consideration in terms which imply that he had not yet worked out his theory of population.