Born in Montrose, Scotland, the son of a cobbler and educated at Montrose Academy and Edinburgh University where he studied divinity and learned economics from Dugald Stewart. Licensed in 1797 to preach in the Church of Scotland and an itinerant preacher until he went to London in 1802 and took to journalism becoming editor of The Literary Journal and St James’s Chronicle. His first work on economics was Essay of the Impolicy of Bounty on the Exportation of Grain (1804) and he acquired more fame with Commerce Defended (1807).
He became an ardent disciple of BENTHAM who gave him much financial support necessary in his early years to bring up nine children. He personally tutored his eldest son JOHN STUART MILL. James Mill’s History of British India (1817) helped him to gain an assistant examinership at the East India Company: he rose to the top post of Chief Examiner and was succeeded by his illustrious son. He encouraged RICARDO in his writing of his Principles of Political Economy (1817).
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