The German proto-neoclassicals were  
doing it that way as early as 1841, and   
Marshall drew off of them, although without  
attribution.  Also, in the English language  
tradition Fleeming Jenkin did it before him.  
My understanding is that Marshall was very  
much focused on explaining the market for   
bread, the most important commodity in the  
average person's consumption basked in England  
even still in the late 1800s.  For that market,  
quantity as driven by weather, is the more  
exogenous factor, with price responding.  
      It was the French, starting with Cournot  
and continuing with Walras, who put price on  
the horizontal axis.  With the relative decline  
of agriculture our discussions have looked more  
like the Walrasian one with price exogenous to  
quantity rather than in the German/Marshallian  
perspective.  
  
Barkley Rosser