THORNTON, HENRY

born March 10, 1760, London, Eng. died Jan. 16, 1815, London English economist, banker, and philanthropist. Thornton was the son of a noted merchant and philanthropist. He became a leading member of the Clapham Sect, an austere, evangelical branch of the Church of England, and a close associate of William Wilberforce in his campaign against slavery. In 1782 Thornton was elected to Parliament for Southwark, a seat he held until the end of his life. Thornton was noted for his integrity and antislavery views and felt he could best maintain his independence by refusing to join either the Whigs or Tories. In Parliament he was regarded by his peers as an authority on all matters of finance. His private life was as idealistic as his public one; he gave away most of his income to charity. Thornton was an exceptional monetary theorist. His major contributions in this field were his ideas on interest, velocity of circulation, prices, and the effects of banking on currency. In An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain (1802), he defended the Bank of England against charges that its excessive issue of paper money had been responsible for a general rise in prices. Thornton adopted the antibullionist position, i.e., that banks reflect rather than cause high prices and that it is impossible to overissue a convertible currency. Thus he opposed a contraction of the note issue in response to high prices. However, he gradually became more critical of the Bank of England, and in his Bullion Report of 1810, which inquired into the cause of the high price of gold bullion, he favoured contraction of the issue of paper money.