ROGERS, JAMES EDWIN THOROLD (1823-1890), English economist, was born at West Meon, Hampshire, in 1823, and educated at King's college, London, and Magdalen Hall, Ox ford. After taking a first-class degree in 1846, he was ordained and was for a few years a curate in Oxford. Subsequently he resigned his orders. He was a good classical scholar and published in 1865 an edition of Aristotle's Ethics; but his friendship with Cobden led him to study economics, with the result that in 1859 he was appointed professor of statistics and economic science at King's college, London, a post which he filled till his death. From 1862 he was also Drummond professor of political economy at Oxford. During that period he published (in 1866) the first two volumes of his History of Agriculture and Prices in England, dealing with the period 1259-1400, a masterly record upon which his reputation mainly rests. Two more volumes (1401-1582) were published in 1882, a fifth and sixth (1583-1702) in 1887, and he left behind him at his death copious materials for a seventh and eighth. An acquaintance with Cobden and John Bright led Rogers to take an active part in politics : he represented South wark in parliament from 1880 to 1885, and Bermondsey in 1885-86, as an advanced Liberal. In 1888, on the death of Prof.
Bonamy Price, who had succeeded him at Oxford as professor of political economy, he was re-elected to the post. Previously (in 1883) he had been appointed lecturer in political economy at Worcester college, Oxford. His latter years were mainly spent at Oxford, where he died on Oct. 12, 1890. Thorold Rogers did much to promote the historical study of economics to which he made a solid contribution in his Six Centuries of Work and W ages (1885).
His most important publications are:—Manual of Political Economy (1868) ; an edition of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1869) ; Cobden and Public Opinion (1873) ; The Speeches of J. Bright (edited) (1868) ; and The First Nine Years of the Bank of England (1887).
See also W. J. Ashley, in The Political Science Quarterly (1889) ; and E. Castelot, in Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Economie Politique, supple ment.