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"George Pryme, a Simeonite Evangelical layman of Trinity College, 
Cambridge, BA 1803 (6th Wrangler), Fellow 1805, MA 1806; ate dinners at 
Lincoln's Inn. called to the bar in 1806 and served the Norfolk circuit 
until 1808 when he retired to Cambridge. He "still kept up his connection 
with the university, directing his attention particularly to political 
economy, a science then in its infancy. His devotion to this study 
ultimately led to the formal recognition by the university of a 
long-admitted want, and the title of Professor of Political Economy was in 
May 1828 conferred upon Mr Pryme. This was the first chair of Political 
Economy established in any British university . . ." 
 
This obituary notice (UL: Cam.c.869.23) is obviously wrong on the last 
point. It also omits to state that Pryme actually began lecturing in pol. 
econ. at Cambridge, gratis, in 1816 (which was certainly earlier than any 
pol. econ. lectures in Britain outside the EIC: Chalmers did not begin at 
St. Andrew's until1824); and that there was no payment whatsoever attached 
to the Cambridge chair. The Heads of Colleges, "who viewed the innovation 
with suspicion, insisted that the lectures were not to begin before twelve 
o'clock, lest they should interfere with college lectures" (DNB). Pryme 
held the chair until 1863 (he died in 1868), when he was succeeded by 
Fawcett. 
 
A.M.C. Waterman 
 
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