Editing Alfred Marshall (section)

==Life and career==
Marshall was born at [[Bermondsey]] in London, the second son of William Marshall (1812–1901), a clerk and cashier at the Bank of England, and Rebecca (1817–1878), daughter of butcher Thomas Oliver, from whom, on her mother's death, she inherited property.<ref>The Wrong Marshall: Notes on the Marshall family in response to biographies of the economist, Alfred Marshall, Megan Stevens and Alun Stevens, in History of Political Economy, Volume 52, Issue 2, April 2020, pp. 239–273</ref> Marshall had two brothers and two sisters; a cousin was the economist [[Ralph George Hawtrey|Ralph Hawtrey]].  The Marshalls were a [[West Country]] [[clergy|clerical]] family; Marshall's great-great-grandfather was "the Reverend William Marshall, half-legendary Herculean parson of Devonshire", famous for "twisting horseshoes with his hands" to scare "local blacksmiths into fearing that they blew their bellows for the devil".<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/search?q=Alfred+Marshall&searchBtn=Search&isQuickSearch=true | title=Search Results for Alfred Marshall }}</ref><ref>Essays in Biography, J. M. Keynes, Harcourt Brace & Co., 1933, pp. 150–151</ref> 
William Marshall was a devout strict Evangelical,<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Reisman |first=David |title=Alfred Marshall: Progress and Politics (Routledge Revivals) |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-136-70344-7 |location=New York |pages=119 |language=en}}</ref> "author of an Evangelical epic in a sort of Anglo-Saxon language of his own invention which found some favour in its appropriate circles" and of a tract titled ''Men's Rights and Women's Duties''. There are scholars who note that this strict upbringing wielded a strong influence on Marshall's work, such as how he favored the doctrines of philosophical idealism.<ref name=":1" /> 

Marshall grew up in [[Clapham]] and was educated at the [[Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood|Merchant Taylors' School]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Keynes |first=J. |title=Essays in Biography |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-349-59074-2 |location=New York, NY |pages=162 |language=en}}</ref> and [[St John's College, Cambridge]], where he demonstrated an aptitude in mathematics, achieving the rank of [[Second Wrangler]] in the 1865 [[Cambridge Mathematical Tripos]].<ref>{{acad|id=MRSL861A|name=Marshall, Alfred}}</ref><ref name="ODNB">{{cite ODNB
 | url = http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/34893
 | title = Alfred Marshall (1896–2019)
 | last = McWilliams Tullberg
 | date = May 2008
 | access-date = 25 April 2008
| doi = 10.1093/ref:odnb/34893
}}
</ref> Marshall experienced a mental crisis that led him to abandon physics and switch to philosophy. He began with metaphysics, specifically "the philosophical foundation of knowledge, especially in relation to theology".<ref>Keynes, 1924</ref> Metaphysics led Marshall to ethics, specifically a [[Henry Sidgwick|Sidgwickian]] version of utilitarianism; ethics, in turn, led him to economics, because economics played an essential role in providing the preconditions for the improvement of the working class. He saw that the duty of economics was to improve material conditions,<ref name=":0" /> but such improvement would occur, Marshall believed, only in connection with social and political forces. His interest in [[Georgism]], liberalism, socialism, trade unions, women's education, poverty and progress reflect the influence of his early social philosophy on his later activities and writings.

Marshall was elected in 1865 to a fellowship at [[St John's College, Cambridge|St John's College]] at [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]], and became lecturer in the moral sciences in 1868. He taught [[Mary Paley Marshall|Mary Paley]] who was became a lecturer at the then embryonic [[Newnham College, Cambridge|Newnham College]], Cambridge; their marriage in 1877 obliged Marshall to resign his position as a [[Fellow (college)|Fellow]] of [[St John's College, Cambridge]]. This coincided with his appointment as the first principal at [[University College, Bristol]], which later became the [[University of Bristol]], where he lectured political economy and economics, alongside his wife, until he resigned in 1881. He returned as Professor of Political Economy in 1882, leaving Bristol for good in 1883 when he was appointed a tutorial fellow at [[Balliol College, Oxford|Balliol College]], [[University of Oxford]]. In 1885 he was appointed professor of political economy at Cambridge University, where he remained until his retirement in 1908. Over the years he interacted with many British thinkers including [[Henry Sidgwick]], [[William Kingdon Clifford|W. K. Clifford]], [[Benjamin Jowett]], [[William Stanley Jevons]], [[Francis Ysidro Edgeworth]], [[John Neville Keynes]] and [[John Maynard Keynes]].  Marshall founded the [[Schools of economic thought#Neoclassical economics|Cambridge School]] which paid special attention to increasing returns, the [[theory of the firm]], and welfare economics; after his retirement academic leadership of the Cambridge economists was taken up by [[Arthur Cecil Pigou]] and [[John Maynard Keynes]].