‘A Great National Calamity’: Ricardo's Obituary in the Morning Chronicle

Abstract

David Rieardo's untimely death on 11 September 1823 at the age of fifty-one cut short a career as a publishing economist that had lasted barely fourteen years. Rieardo's first printed work, an unsigned article on the state of the currency, had appeared in the Morning Chronicle of 29 August 1809. It had stimulated a double exchange of letters in the same newspaper between Hutches Trower (who signed as "A Friend to Bank Notes") and Ricardo (who signed "R") , the last of which appeared on 23 November 1809. The following year Ricardo had three more letters published in the Morning Chronicle — on 6, 18, and 24 September dealing with the recently issued Bullion Report. They were to be his last letters written to, and printed in, that or any other newspaper, as far as we know.