Preface to: Francis Ysidro Edgeworth: Portrait with Family and Friends by L. Barbe

Francis Ysidro Edgeworth was a leading figure in the rapid development of economics during the last quarter of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th century, by which time it was firmly established as an academic subject. He held the Drummond Chair at Oxford and was regarded as second only to the great Cambridge economist Alfred Marshall. He was a prolific and highly original author who, in a cosmopolitan age, had probably the widest correspondence with economists all over the world. He was a man of enormously wide reading and considerable linguistic skills. He was the first editor of the Economic Journal, published by the newly formed Royal Economic Society. He was President of Section F of the British Association in 1889 and 1922. He achieved eminence as a statistician as well as an economist, becoming a Guy Medallist (Gold) of the Royal Statistical Society in 1907 and was President of the Society in 1912-14.