English economist, born in London on the 25th of February 1860. He was educated at St. Olave’s grammar school and Balliol College, Oxford, and became a fellow of Lincoln College. In 1888 he was appointed professor of political economy and constitutional history in Toronto University, a post which he resigned in 1892, in order to become professor of economic history at Harvard University. In 1901 he was appointed professor of commerce and finance in Birmingham University and in 1902 dean of the faculty of commerce. Professor Ashley became well known for his work on the early history of English industry, and for his prominence among those English economists who supported Mr. Chamberlain’s tariff reform movement. His most important works are Early History of the English Woollen Industry (1887); Introduction to English Economic History and Theory (2 parts, 1888–1893); Surveys, Historic and Economic (1900); Adjustment of Wages (1903); the Tariff Problem (2nd ed., 1904); Progress of the German Working Classes (1904).
Sir Ashley served during the World War on a number of Government committees, especially with regard to food prices and the cost of living. He was a member of the Consumers’ Council appointed in 1918 to assist the Ministry of Food. In 1913 he had been president of the Economic History section of the International Historical Congress, and in 1914 he was one of the authors of the report on Industrial Unrest published by the Unionist Social Reform Committee. In 1912 he published The Rise in Prices and Gold and Prices, and in 1914 The Economic Organisation of England. He was knighted in 1917.
