where, that they can never pass out of date. Karl Marx has said that Eden is ‘the only disciple of Adam Smith during the eighteenth century that produced any work of importance’ (Capital, Eng. trans. ii. 629). However this may be, to no writer of the time have subsequent investigators been more indebted.
The following is a list of Eden's works:
- ‘The State of the Poor; or an History of the Labouring Classes in England from the Conquest to the present period; in which are particularly considered their domestic economy with respect to diet, dress, fuel, and habitation; and the various plans which, from time to time, have been proposed and adopted for the relief of the poor, &c.,’ 3 vols. 4to. Vol. i. contains the treatise on the poor; vol. ii. parochial reports relating to the administration of workhouses and houses of industry, friendly societies, &c.; vol. iii. parochial reports continued, and appendix containing tables of prices, wages, &c. No. 18 of appendix is a catalogue of publications on subjects relative to the poor. An abridged translation of the work is found in vol. vii. of Duquesnoy's ‘Recueil de mémoires sur les établissements d'humanité.’
- ‘Porto-Bello: or a plan for the improvement of the Port and City of London,’ plates, 1798.
- ‘An Estimate of the Number of the Inhabitants in Great Britain and Ireland,’ 1800. Written while the Census Bill was before parliament; partly extracted from ‘The State of the Poor.’
- ‘Observations on Friendly Societies, for the maintenance of the industrious classes during sickness, infirmity, old age, and other exigencies,’ 1801.
- ‘Eight Letters on the Peace; and on the Commerce and Manufactures of Great Britain,’ 1802. Originally addressed to the ‘Porcupine’ newspaper and signed ‘Philanglus.’
- ‘Brontes: a cento to the memory of the late Viscount Nelson, duke of Bronté, 1806,’ anonymous; in Latin hexameters.
- ‘Address on the Maritime Rights of Great Britain,’ 1807; 2nd edit. (containing ‘suggestions on the measures necessary to render the United Kingdom independent of other countries for the most indispensable articles now supplied by foreign commerce’), 1808.
- ‘The Vision,’ 1820, another edition 1828; addressed to the Rev. Jonathan Boucher.
The notice in the ‘Gent. Mag.’ (June 1804) of Boucher is by Eden (pref. to Letters of Rich. Radcliffe and John James, Oxford Hist. Soc. p. xiv). Walford (Insurance Cyclopædia, art. ‘Eden’) mentions also a pamphlet ‘On the Policy and Expediency of granting Insurance Charters,’ 1806, and a proposal for the establishment in London of a fire brigade on the model of the corps de sapeurs-pompiers of Paris, 1808. A letter of Eden's criticising a scheme of Bentham's for annuity notes is among the Bentham MSS. (Brit. Mus. Addit. MSS. 31235), and Nichols prints two of his letters to Bishop Percy (Lit. Illustrations, viii. 355–6).
[Gent. Mag. lxxviii. 1178; Walford's Insurance Cyclop.; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
EDEN, GEORGE, Earl of Auckland (1784–1849), statesman and governor-general of India, second son of William Eden, first baron Auckland [q. v.], by Eleanor Elliot, sister of the first Earl of Minto, was born at Eden Farm, near Beckenham in Kent, on 25 Aug. 1784. As a younger son he was at first intended for a professional career. He matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, 3 May 1802, proceeded B.A. 1806, and M.A. 1808. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn on 13 May 1809, and was under-teller of the exchequer from 1809 to 1812. His elder brother, William Frederick Eden, M.P. for Woodstock, was found drowned in the Thames on 24 Feb. 1810, and George succeeded to his brother's seat in the House of Commons on 10 March. He sat until the dissolution of 1812, when he was defeated at Oxford, and was re-elected for Woodstock in Nov. 1813. On 28 May 1814 he succeeded his father as second Lord Auckland. His father, in early days the intimate friend of Pitt, supported Addington in 1804. The second Lord Auckland had thus imbibed whig ideas. He voted and spoke consistently with the whig party during the long period succeeding the battle of Waterloo, when it remained in opposition. His constant attendance in the House of Lords and plain common sense commended him highly to whig leaders, and when Lord Grey formed his reform ministry in Nov. 1830 he gave Auckland a seat in his cabinet, with the offices of president of the board of trade and master of the mint. He was also commissioner of Greenwich Hospital from 1829 to 1834. He proved himself a capable official. In July 1834 Earl Grey retired, followed by Sir James Graham, Lord Stanley, the Duke of Richmond, and the Earl of Ripon, and Lord Melbourne had to reconstitute the whig ministry. Auckland was chosen to succeed Sir James Graham as first lord of the admiralty. He went out of office with Lord Melbourne in December 1834, and returned to his old post in April 1835, after Sir Robert Peel's short administration, and was soon after made a G.C.B. But he did not long remain in office, for in September 1835 Lord Melbourne decided to revoke Sir Robert Peel's nomination of Lord Heytesbury to the governor-generalship of India, and on his recommendation the court of directors accepted
