Tawney, Richard Henry (b. 30 Nov. 1880, d. 16 Jan. 1962). British economic historian and social critic Born in Calcutta, he was educated at Rugby and Oxford. He was a social worker and investigator at
Toynbee Hall, and then, in 1908, became engaged in adult education as the first tutorial teacher for the Worker's Education Association (WEA). He served in the Manchester Regiment in World War I, and was almost fatally wounded in the Battle of the
Somme. In 1919, he began to teach for the London School of Economics, where he was professor of economic history in 1931–49. His academic writing centred on sixteenth-and seventeenth-century economics, his most famous work being
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926). He was active in the
Labour Party, failing four times to be elected to Parliament. However, his work
Secondary Education for All (1922) was the basis of Labour's education policy, and was central in the writing of its 1928 policy statement
Labour and the Nation. He also had much influence on social thought through
The Acquisitive Society (1920), which argued that material acquisitiveness was morally wrong, and
Equality (1929), which criticized ‘the religion of inequality’ dominating England based on class privilege. He was a major influence on the social thought of the Labour Party and on the
Anglican Church, and a significant force in the history of adult education.
