 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "John Kells Ingram" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(September 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
John Kells Ingram | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1823-07-07)7 July 1823 |
| Died | 1 May 1907(1907-05-01) (aged 83) Dublin |
| Occupation(s) | mathematician, economist, poet,polymath |
John Kells Ingram (7 July 1823 – 1 May 1907) was an Irish mathematician, economist and poet. He has been co-credited, along withJohn William Stubbs, with introducing the geometric concept ofinversion in a circle.[1][2]
Ingram was born on 7 July 1823, at theRectory ofTemplecarne (Aghnahoo), just south ofPettigo, a village in south-eastCounty Donegal, Ireland into anUlster Scots family.[3]
Although his ancestry wasScottish Presbyterian, Ingram's grandparents had converted toAnglicanism. His grandfather Captain John Ingram ran alinenmill and had a business as a linenbleacher inGlennane (Lisdrumhure). He was active in theVolunteer Movement and financed in 1782 a volunteer corps in the County Armagh, known asLisdrumhure Volunteers orMountnorris Volunteers.[3]
Ingram's father, Rev. William Ingram, a scholar at Trinity College Dublin, rector of theChurch of Ireland and curate ofTemplecarne Parish (Diocese of Clogher), married Elizabeth Cooke in 1817.[3]
Ingram's father died in 1829 and his mother then moved with the family toNewry, to guarantee the best possible education for her five children. Ingram first went to Mr. Lyons' School inNewry from 1829 to 1837. He also attendedDrogheda Grammar School.
In 1840, at the age of sixteen, Ingram published sonnets in theDublin University Magazine.[3]
On 13 October 1837, he matriculated atTrinity College Dublin. He waselected a Scholar of the college in 1840, graduated with a BA in mathematics in 1842, and was awarded an MA in 1850. He was a member of theCollege Historical Society.[4] His early scholarly publications (1842–1847) were in mathematics.[5] He had a distinguished career at Trinity, spanning over fifty-five years, as a student, fellow and professor, successively ofOratory,English Literature,Jurisprudence andGreek,LL.D,FTCD), subsequently becoming the College Librarian and ultimately its Vice Provost.[3][6]
During his life, Ingram was President of the Library Association of Great Britain, co-founder of theNational Library of Ireland, National Library trustee,[5] Vice-president of theLibrary Association of Ireland, a member of theRoyal Irish Academy, co-founder of the Dublin Statistical Society, honorary member of theAmerican Economic Association, member of theEnglish historical school of economics and co-founder of theHermathena publication.[5]
One evening in March 1843 Ingram wrote the poem for which he is best remembered, a political ballad called "The Memory of the Dead" (better known as "Who Fears to Speak of '98"; or "Ninety Eight"), in honour of theIrish Rebellion of 1798 led by theUnited Irishmen. On that evening, he was in company of his like-minded friends John O'Regan, Thomas O'Regan andGeorge Ferdinand Shaw, all fellow Protestant students at TCD. They spent the evening discussing the 1798 Rebellion when brieflyCatholics andProtestants (mainlyPresbyterians andMethodists) united to try to overturn theProtestant Ascendancy in Ireland from which all of them were excluded. They were stirred by the lack of regard shown for the Irish rebels of 1798 by the contemporary nationalist movement, led byDaniel O'Connell.[6]
The poem was published anonymously on 1 April 1843 inThomas Davis'sThe Nation Newspaper although in fact its authorship was an open secret in Dublin.[5]The Nation was the publication of the radical and bourgeois-radical wing of Ó Conaill's movement for "repeal" of the Act of Union between Ireland and Great Britain. Despite this poem, Ingram showed no nationalist sympathies at any time, maintaining that Ireland was not ready for self-government. "'The Memory of the Dead' was my only contribution to the 'Nation'," commented Ingram later.[7] Nevertheless, before he died, Ingram made a manuscript copy of "Ninety Eight", proclaiming that he would always defend brave men who opposed tyranny.[8]
It was set to music for voice and piano in 1845 byJohn Edward Pigot.[6] Ingram's ballad was translated into Latin byRobert Yelverton Tyrrell and into Irish by Dr.Douglas Hyde. The song became a popular Irish nationalist anthem. It is one of the best-known of Irish Republican songs and often played by the piper at Republican funerals.[citation needed]
Ingram was one of the writers selected to write "scholars" entries for the ninth edition, the tenth edition and the eleventh editions of theEncyclopædia Britannica. He wrote the entries in theEncyclopædia Britannica[6] onPierre Leroux,Cliffe Leslie,John Ramsay McCulloch,[9]Georg Ludwig von Maurer,William Petty,Francois Quesnay,[9] andKarl Heinrich Rau.
In his later career Ingram became interested in the nascent disciplines of sociology and economics. He was not a trained economist but rather a sociologist and his early economic writings dealt mainly with thePoor Law. He was a spokesman for historical economics in Britain and influenced many contemporary social and economic thinkers at that time in Great Britain, the United States, and continental Europe.[citation needed] His attack on classical economics encompassed its methodology and its conclusions.[citation needed] Ingram played an important role in the EnglishMethodenstreit (Battle of methods), (closely associated with theWerturteilsstreit). In his 1888History of Political Economy he used the term "economic man" as a critical description of the human being as conceived by economic theory, and he may have coined the term. From 1891 to 1896 Ingram wrote entries inPalgrave's Dictionary of Economics. He was president of theStatistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland between 1878 and 1880 and took over as President of theRoyal Irish Academy whenWilliam Reeves died in 1892.[10]
He also wrote on labour and trade issues, and connecting these to slavery, includingdomestic slavery in Europe from ancient times onward. His book,A History of Slavery and Serfdom was extremely successful, being translated into eleven languages and serving as a textbook till the 1920s.[citation needed] He also wrote the entries onsumptuary laws andslavery in the 9th,[9] 10th[9] and 11th editions of theEncyclopædia Britannica. Paul O'Higgins attributes the phrase "labour is not a commodity" to Ingram, who used it in 1880 during a Dublin meeting of the BritishTrades Union Congress. It appears as a principle in the preamble to theInternational Labour Organization's founding documents.[11]
Ingram was active in the fields of mathematics, archaeology, the classics, economics, etymology, law, literature, medieval manuscripts, poetry, religious speculation and Shakespearean criticism. He wrote extensively on Shakespearean syntax.[citation needed] He worked on advancing the science of classical etymology, notably in hisGreek and Latin Etymology in England.
He also wrote papers on Mexican antiques and contributed papers to mathematical societies ondifferential calculus andgeometrical analysis.[citation needed]
Ingram published several books of poetry and fiction:
Ingram was an advocate ofHome Rule for Ireland, though within the context of a more general devolution within the United Kingdom.[citation needed]
Ingram was a firm adherent ofAuguste Comte and was also apositivist. He was influenced by theGerman Historical School.[5]
Ingram spoke up for the access of female students to Trinity College. In his function as college librarian, he first opened Trinity College Library so that the general public could see great Irish literary treasures such as theBook of Kells.
.jpg)
Ingram died in 1907 in his house, 38 Upper Mount Street, Dublin, where he had lived since 1884, and was buried inMount Jerome Cemetery.
Ingram married Margaret Johnston Clark on 23 July 1862 atMaghera Church,County Londonderry.[12] They had five children:
Ingram's influence on economics was described by economistRichard Theodore Ely as:
A more humane and genial spirit has taken the place of the old dryness and hardness which once repelled so many of the best minds from the study of Economics and won for it the name of 'the dismal science'. In particular, the problem of the Proletariat, of the condition and future of the working classes- has taken a powerful hold on the feelings, as well as the intellect, of Society, and is studied in a more earnest and sympathetic spirit than at any former time.[citation needed]
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Regius Professor of Greek atTrinity College Dublin 1866–1880 | Succeeded by |
