ABSTRACT
A newly appointed assistant lecturer in the University of Belfast in 1963, with no postgraduate training but with more than two years' experience in industry, including time with British Nylon Spinners, approached his head of department with a suggestion for a research topic. 1 The proposal concerned, naturally enough, the textile industry in Ulster, but the head of department suggested that he might instead consider a topic in the history of economic analysis, such as the work of McCulloch. Despite the scale of the undertaking, which it can be certain that neither supervisor nor Ph.D. student fuHy appreciated at the time, the fact that McCuHoch's published output was enormous and ranged over the whole of classical economics, combined with the not insignificant difficulty that the primary material was scattered across the other side of the lrish Sea throughour England and Scotland, the investigation was duly started.
