William Whewell (1794-1866), Dionysius Lardner (1793-1859) and Charles Babbage (1792-1871)

The importance of Whewell, Lardner and Babbage to the history of economic thought is as dependent upon the retrospective reading of their work as it is upon their contemporary significance. However, their individual reactions to the industrial and technological revolutions of the early nineteenth century are also of particular interest to us.

William Whewell was known in his own times as a historian and philosopher of science, however, more recently he has been hailed as one of the founders ...