Petty, Sir William 1623-87
English economist

Born in Romsey, Hampshire, he went to sea, and then studied at a Jesuit college in Caen, and in Utrecht, Amsterdam, Leyden, Paris and Oxford. He taught anatomy at Oxford, and music at Gresham College, London. Appointed physician to the army in Ireland (1652), he executed a fresh survey of the Irish lands forfeited in 1641 and started ironworks, lead mines, sea-fisheries and other industries on estates he bought in south-west Ireland. He was made Surveyor-General of Ireland by Charles II. The inventor of a copying machine (1647), and a double-keeled sea boat (1663), he was one of the first members of the Royal Society. In political economy he was a precursor of Adam Smith, and wrote a Treatise on Taxes (1662) and Political Arithmetic (1691), the latter a discussion of the value of comparative statistics. He married Baroness Shelburne, and his sons were successively Lord Shelburne.