ABSTRACT
One of the reasons that economic writers from the 1770's onwards concentrated on current prices was that prices were changing so rapidly. Arthur Young noticed the price increases beginning in the middle of the century, remarking especially at their rapidity in the period 1760 to 1774. Certainly the best writer on prices before 1850 was Thomas Tooke. The son of William Tooke, an Anglican chaplain who ministered to the spiritual needs of English businessmen in Germany and later in Russia, Thomas at the age of fifteen began work in a business firm in St. Petersburg. Among Tooke's statistics are price figures for wheat and other grains from 1821 to 1839, with weekly price data for the period 1829-47. He examines critically the work of Jacob, Eden, Young, Smith, and the French authorities, the Marquis Garnier, Du Pres de St. Maur, and the French Statistical Commission. Tooke constructs his own table of English and French wheat prices for the period 1401-1856.
