Political Economy & The Politics of Inheritance in Britain: 1759-1848

I aim to write the first intellectual history of the British succession law debates. In eighteenth century America and
France, republicans abolished primogeniture and entail. Equal inheritance laws were enacted to redistribute property,
arguably laying the foundations for modern democratic states. Why, then, did Britain only abolish primogeniture and
entail in 1925? My thesis explores a neglected reason: that political economy, the predominant movement within British
political thought, was ideologically divided over inheritance reform until at least 1848. Key theorists weaponised Smith's
Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), championing primogeniture and aristocracy as stimulating inequality; others argued
for equal inheritance and representative government, culminating with Mill's inheritance tax proposal in his Principles of
Political Economy (1848). I will examine normative justifications given for these visions across three argumentative
contexts: the Scottish Enlightenment debates including Millar and Stewart; the 1820s debates between Malthus,
McCulloch, Austin and Mill; and the pre-1848 inheritance reform arguments of Laing, Beaumont and Thornton. I will
challenge 'liberal' interpretations of Smith by reconstructing his theories of the non-rational foundations of obligation and
inequality; and reinterpret nineteenth century egalitarian inheritance reform arguments as building upon the republican
tradition, rather than as attempts at solving the 'social question.'