At the HES meeting held at Grinnell, Iowa, June 2006, the following were presented with
the award of Distinguished Fellows of the Society:
  
  
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Donald Walker:  
  
Professor Donald Walker, Emeritus Professor at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, has
a distinguished record of scholarship, with more than 100 published items in the field of
the history of economic thought. He is best known for his work on Leon Walras, first
continuing the tradition of scholarship of William Jaffe and then challenging and
developing the received view. His contributions in compiling and annotating a
"Bibliography of the Writings of Leon Walras" (History of Political Economy, 1987), and in
his two major books Walras's Market Models (1996) and Walrasian Economics (2006) (both
with Cambridge University Press) have added significantly to our understanding of Walras
and of his work. Professor Walker was also instrumental in establishing the International
Walras Society and served as its first President from 1997-2000. It is less well known,
but equally relevant, that he has published an extensive body of work on American
Institutionalism, including significant work on the enigmatic figure of Clarence Ayers;
and has contributed to the broader literatures on contemporaries of Walras, namely:
Edgeworth, Marshall and Pareto. His publication record is shared between an impressive
collection of American and European journals.
  
Professor Walker has an equally distinguished record of service to our field. He was
President Elect of our Society in 1986-7 and President in 1987-8, during which time he
established an annual conference volume Studies in the Perspectives on the History of
Economic Thought. However his most lasting contribution to our Society is evidenced by the
existence of our journal, the Journal of the History of Economic Thought (JHET). Professor
Walker first developed its forerunner - the HES Bulletin - into a refereed journal, and
then oversaw its transformation into a fully-fledged scholarly journal, JHET, serving as
its editor for the first ten years:1989 to 1998. His efforts established our journal as a
serious international periodical, and so helped the Society to widen its outlook beyond
its North American base.
  
It is with great pleasure that we name Donald Walker a Distinguished Fellow of the History
of Economics Society.
  
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John Whitaker:  
  
Professor John Whitaker, Georgia Bankard Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia,
has made fundamental contributions to our field in his work on Alfred Marshall, not just
in his analysis of Marshall's work, but in bringing Alfred Marshall's papers into easy
access within our community. His painstaking work in assembling The Early Economic
Writings of Alfred Marshall, 1867-1890 (two volumes, 1975) and in preparing The
Correspondence of Alfred Marshall, Economist (three volumes, 1996), both published by
Cambridge University Press for the Royal Economic Society, provide models of impeccable
scholarship for our field. The Early Works gave us a new perspective on the young Marshall
and revealed the breadth of his intellectual and social interests, while Whitaker's Index
to the impressive volumes of Correspondence has been described as a "masterpiece" in
itself! Beyond these several important volumes lies a wealth of journal articles and
reviews, not just on Marshall but on many others of that period such as Henry George; and
not just on the history of economics, but (particularly in earlier years) on capital
theory, monetary theory, etc, published in the major mainstream economic journals.
  
Professor Whitaker has been an active contributor to the history of economics community.
He is well-known for his open-minded assistance to others, particularly younger scholars,
and has been, and continues to be, on the editorial boards of a number of journals and
book series, including JHET (since 1989). He was our Society's Vice President in 1981-2,
and our President in 1983-84 and has served on a number of our Society's committees. More
recently he has been instrumental in founding and developing the Marshall Studies
Bulletin, Chairing its Editorial Board since it began in 1990, and most recently
contributing much to the forthcoming Companion to Marshall.
  
It is with great pleasure that we name John Whitaker a Distinguished Fellow of the History
of Economics Society.
  
  
Mary S. Morgan