ABSTRACT
In a paper published in the British Railway Register for 1847, and entitled ‘Physical Economy – a preliminary inquiry into the physical laws governing the periods of famines and panics’, Dr Hyde Clarke suggested the existence of a 54-year period which started with the crisis of 1793 and ended with that of 1847. Clarke saw this long period as consisting of five 10–11 year periods (or Juglars, as later authors were to call them), the intervals being the crises of 1804, 1815, 1826 and 1837.
