Benjamin Worsley (1618-1677): Trade, Interest and the Spirit in Revolutionary England

ISBN-10: 086193296X
ISBN-13: 9780861932962
Category: History / Social History
Pages: 230
Language: English
Published: 2008
Publisher: Boydell Press
Author: Thomas Leng

Description

Benjamin Worsley occupies a unique place in the development of commercial governance in England. Employed as secretary to councils of trade by both the Commonwealth and restored monarchy, his career reveals the contribution of republican policies to the establishment of a navigation system that governed commercial relations between England and its empire for decades to come. But Worsley was far more than a faceless public servant. Ally of the reformer andpublisher Samuel Hartlib, mentor to the young scientist Robert Boyle, arch-enemy of William Petty, the political arithmetician, Worsley participated in the intellectual culture of his time, but until now his own story has remained untold. As a London apprentice, military surgeon, and projector; jealous observer of Dutch trade, employee of republic and crown alike, and frustrated surveyor of Cromwellian Ireland; experimental scientist, aspiring alchemist, spiritual seeker, and restoration dissenter, Worsley stood at the juncture of many crucial historical developments. Bringing together commercial, intellectual and political history, and ranging from London to Ireland, Amsterdam, and the international trade routes in which they were set, this book tells the story of a remarkable character and the revolutionary age through which he lived.

Dr THOMAS LENG is Lecturer in History at the University ofSheffield.

Get the book

Similar books

Fellowship and Freedom: The Merchant Adventurers and the Restructuring of English Commerce, 1582-1700
By Thomas Leng
Business Culture in the British Atlantic, 1750–1815 (Liverpool, 2012). Hailwood, Mark, Alehouses and Good Fellowship in Early Modern England (Woodbridge, 2014). Hancock, David, Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration ...
English Economic Thought in the Seventeenth Century: Rejecting the Dutch Model
By Seiichiro Ito
... Benjamin Worsley (1618–1677): trade, interest and the spirit in revolutionary England (Woodbridge, 2008), 74–5. 203 [Benjamin Worsley], The advocate: or, a narrative of the state and condition of things between the English and Dutch ...
The Necessity of Nature: God, Science and Money in 17th Century English Law of Nature
By Mónica García-Salmones Rovira
God, Science and Money in 17th Century English Law of Nature Mónica García-Salmones Rovira. 41 Prosecuting International Crimes: Selectivity and the International Criminal Law Regime Robert Cryer 40 Compensation for Personal Injury in ...
Histories of Trade as Histories of Civilisation
By Antonella Alimento, Aris Della Fontana
This edited collection explores the histories of trade, a peculiar literary genre that emerged in the context of the historiographical and cultural changes promoted by the histoire philosophique movement.
William Petty: And the Ambitions of Political Arithmetic
By Ted McCormick
... Benjamin Worsley, who linked Hartlib and Boyle with an 'Invisible College' of alchemical correspondents across ... (1618–1677): Trade, Interest, and the Spirit in Revolutionary England (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2008); Charles ...
Anthony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury 1621–1683
By John Spurr
As such, this book presents a unique and coherent picture of Shaftesbury that draws upon the very latest interdisciplinary research, and will no doubt stimulate further work on the most intriguing politician of his generation.
The Cambridge History of Ireland: Volume 2, 1550–1730
By Jane Ohlmeyer
This volume offers fresh perspectives on the political, military, religious, social, cultural, intellectual, economic, and environmental history of early modern Ireland and situates these discussions in global and comparative contexts.
War, Trade and the State: Anglo-Dutch Conflict, 1652-89
By David Ormrod, Gijs Rommelse
4 and 53; J.M. Collinge (ed.), Navy Board officials 1660–1832. Office-holders in modern Britain (12 vols, London, 1978), vol. 7, 1–2 and 18. G.G. Harris, The Trinity House at Deptford, 1514–1660 (Oxford, 1969). J.R. Tanner (ed.) ...
Adam Boreel (1602–1665): A Collegiant’s Attempt to Reform Christianity
By Francesco Quatrini
However, there were also people belonging to religious dissenting groups, the so-called “radical reformers,” who put forward ... See: James R. Jacob, Henry Stubbe, Radical Protestantism and the Early Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge ...
Historicizing Self-Interest in the Modern Atlantic World: A Plea for Ego?
By Christine Zabel
... Money . 1900. Reprint , London : Routledge , 2011 . Simon , Herbert . “ Bounded Rationality and Organizational ... Love , Self - Deceit and Money : Commerce and Morality in the Early Neapolitan Enlightenment . Toronto : University of ...