Alfred Marshall’s window on the emerging historical profession: 1871–1873

The historical profession in Oxbridge underwent dramatic change during the 1860s and 1870s. From an amateur profession, lacking a substantial curriculum, it became an established profession with canonical figures and set-texts. Parallel to the emergence of a new academic history in the early 1870s, Alfred Marshall (1842–1924) a young Cambridge don and moral scientist (and later famous economist) was engaged in wide reading of historical literature. The essay identifies three stages in Marshall’s historical reading, as evidenced by the notes he took, an essay he wrote at this time, and the historical sections of his later published economic works. The three stages illuminate the emerging historical profession, especially in Cambridge.