From Hawick to Hawick: The story of The Economist founder James Wilson

The life and times of The Economist founder who presented India's first Budget in 1860

In May 2019, a 12-foot statue was reinstalled in Hawick, a small Scottish town with population below 14,000. Sculpted in 1863 in Edinburgh by John Steell, Queen Victoria’s official sculptor, it came from a single block of carrara marble. So restored to a due honour was James Wilson, the first finance member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, who presented India’s first Budget in 1860.

Born into a Quaker family in 1805, fourth among 15 siblings, Wilson wanted to study law, but the Quaker tradition frowned upon the profession. He became an apprentice to a hat manufacturer, spending his nights reading economics and other subjects. Wilson’s father, a woollen manufacturer, purchased the firm for him and a brother. Having outgrown Hawick, the brothers moved their business in 1824 to London, where it flourished. 

In 1839, Wilson published Influences of the Corn-Laws, the first of his pamphlets, crusading for free trade. In September 1843, he established The Economist to campaign for abolishing the Corn Laws. In 1844, he retired from business, to expand his magazine. He wrote most of the lead articles. It soon became quite influential, as it continues to be today. 

To support The Economist with the benefit of political office, Wilson contested and was elected to the House of Commons in 1847. He made such a good impression that within six months, Prime Minister John Russell made him a secretary of the Board of Control, which oversaw the East India Company. He continued there till February 1852. Introduction of railways in India, against stiff opposition, was one area where Wilson played a role. 

Foreseeing the decline of the East India Company, Wilson mooted a Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, to control banking in the East. The prospectus was published in The Economist. The bank would merge in 1969 with the Standard Bank, of South Africa, to become Standard Chartered Bank. 

In January 1853, he became financial secretary to the Treasury for five years. This stint established Wilson’s reputation as a financial administrator. A self-taught economist, his business success, remarkable memory, influential articles, ability to simplify complex issues, balanced judgement and quick decisions combined to build his reputation.

In June 1859, Wilson became vice-president of Board of Trade, paymaster general, and a privy councillor. He was soon identified to become the first finance member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council India, to put order into chaos. Wilson was reluctant. He was expecting a Cabinet position, and was concerned about The Economist. He finally relented as a sense of duty. Walter Bagehot, who had married Wilson’s eldest daughter, was put in charge of The Economist. Bagehot would later author, among other classics, Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market (1873), his lasting contribution to central banking. Wilson left England on October 20, 1859.

Soon after reaching Calcutta in December, Wilson travelled up to Lahore, meeting with revenue officials on the way, deciding “it was a fine country to tax.” His plan of putting order into chaos involved five points. First, taxing the trading classes. Second, a government paper currency. Third, reform of the financial system with budgets and estimates, a Pay Department, and audit. Fourth, a civil police. Fifth, public works and roads. Wilson would claim great progress in the first four. He also set up a Military Finance Commission and a Civil Finance Commission.

Wilson presented his Budget — India’s first — on February 18, 1860, and a Minute detailing the paper currency framework, completed with his idea of currency circles, on March 3. He rationalised various duties, and announced an income tax, licence tax and tobacco duty. The taxes were to remain stable for five years. It was so well received for ending uncertainty in taxation that Wilson called himself “the most fortunate of tax-gatherers”. The dissenting voice came from Charles Trevelyan, governor of Madras, who made public his disapproving Minute. He was promptly recalled for insubordination. But, the damage was done. Charles Canning forced Wilson to drop the licence tax and tobacco duty. 

A disappointed Wilson would say: “Firmness and justice are the only policy for India: no vacillation, or you are gone. They like to be governed; and respect an iron hand, if it be but equal and just.” Wilson compared the Indian exchequer to a huge machine, the English treasury being nothing in comparison for complexity, diversity, and remoteness of points of action. He assessed the Indian administration as follows: “Time, distance, and divided authority, with the sacrificing consequences of procrastination and shirking responsibility and the tendency to get rid of difficulties by compromise or delays are fatal elements in the character of the Government of India.”

The increasing heat, fallout from the Trevelyan affair, and hard work, took a toll on Wilson. His wife and daughters were in Ootacamund to escape the heat. Wilson stayed on, conscious of the need for his presence to effect the changes he was introducing. With the onset of monsoon, he suffered from dysentery. On August 2, he shifted to his doctor’s home. Canning, after meeting him, wrote that he saw death in Wilson’s face. Wilson used the meeting to commend certain officers, and outline the pending work. He passed away on August 11, 1860, aged 55. His body was interred in a cemetery in Mullick Bazaar, Calcutta. Though in India for just eight months, his funeral procession, two miles long, was the largest Calcutta had seen. 

The mercantile community of Calcutta had a full-length statue of Wilson installed at the Dalhousie Institute in 1865. He shared space with former governor generals and viceroys. Evan Cotton in his 1907 book on Calcutta observed that all the others were moved to the Indian Museum pending transfer to the Victoria Memorial. He wondered why “James Wilson has not been permitted to follow them”. The answer lies in George Curzon’s February 1901 address to the Asiatic Society, where he outlined the shape the Victoria Memorial would take. One or more galleries were to be devoted to full-length sculptures for eminent persons. Others would only have portraits, busts, or mementoes. Wilson, an autodidact who had not gone to Eton or Oxford like Curzon and died too early to be knighted, figured in the second list. 

Wilson’s statue remained in stately isolation for over five decades. In 1960, the Dalhousie Institute building made way for the Telephone House. Someone had the statue sent to London. It was with The Economist till 2017, when they gifted it to Hawick, while shifting their office. 

The original location in Hawick was found unsuitable after two right hand fingers went missing, probably due to vandalism. In his final destination, Wilson looks in the direction of High Street, where he was born. Though Wilson’s mortal remains are in Calcutta, Hawick is proud and honoured to keep the statue of their famous son. Wilson himself would have been delighted to be back home, also content that his accomplishments were as varied, far-reaching, and enduring as those of any other. He could be humming the old Scottish song:

“…the mist covered mountains of home! 

There shall I visit the place of my birth. 

They’ll give me a welcome the warmest on earth. 

So loving and kind, full of music and mirth, the sweet sounding language of home.”

The writer is a former central banker