1. Thomas Robert Malthus A Famous Political Economist

2. Who Was Thomas Malthus? Born Feburary 13 th, 1766 in Surrey, England His nationality was British He was famous as a Political Economist His parents were Daniel and Henrietta Malthus His dad was a wealthy man interested in science

3. Who Was Thomas Malthus? He had six sisters and one brother Thomas married his wife Harriet on March 13 th, 1804 They had 3 children together He and his wife lived a quiet life together They were very involved in the church and travelled He Died on December 23 rd, 1834 in Bath, England

4. Thomas’ Education/ Early Life: Thomas received his early education at home His father taught him, as well as tutors who were friends of his dads In 1784, he attended Jesus College in Cambridge He mastered in English, Latin and Greek He graduated from here in 1788

5. Thomas’ Education/ Early Life: In 1788, he became a Minister of the Church in England He got a Masters degree from Jesus College in 1791 In 1796, he became a Member of the Church in the town of Albury, England He began preaching and writing while involved in the church

6. Thomas’ Education/ Early Life: He was involved in debates with his father at these churches He began writing his debate ideas on paper These debates lead to the many essays he wrote relating to population

7. Where Thomas Worked: In 1805, Thomas became a professor of History and Political Economy He taught at the East India College in England. His students referred to him as “Pop” or “Population” Malthus Thomas taught here until his death in 1834

8. Thomas’ Relation to Biology: In 1798, he published the First Edition of an Essay The Essay was called “The Principle of Population as It Affects the Future Improvements in Society” This was Thomas’ most famous work

9. Thomas’ Essay Argument: Populations, both human and animals, grow at an exponential rate Food Supplies, grow at an constant rate Therefore, populations will always grow faster than the food required to support them

11. Thomas’ Essay Argument: He said that if a countries population continued to explode the way it did, there was no hope that the worlds food supply could keep up. An increase in population would eventually decrease the ability of the world to feed itself.

13. Thomas’ Essays Continued Thomas made a total of 6 revisions to his Essay on “The Principle of Population” He kept further explaining his points and adding new ideas

14. How to Sustain the Population: Thomas believed their were 2 types of “checks” that could reduce population to a sustainable level: Preventive Checks- These affect the birth rate and include things like people not reproducing, delaying marriage until a couple has money, and restricting marriage of people in poverty Positive Checks- These increase the death rate, leading to early death and include things like disease, starvation, war.

16. All This Lead to Darwin’s Theory… Charles Darwin read Thomas’ Essay and was inspired by it He used many of Thomas’ ideas and used his work as a building block for his theory of Natural Selection.