Herbert Somerton Foxwell (1849-1936) was born and grew up in Shepton Mallet in the Mendip Hills in Somerset, where his father had a business as an ironmonger and slate and timber merchant. At the age of 12 he went to the Wesleyan Collegiate Institute (later Queen's College), Taunton. He passed the London matriculation examination at the minimum age, and obtained the London External B.A. degree when only 18 years of age. He went to Saint John's, Cambridge, in 1868, where he was made a Fellow in 1874. He was associated with Saint John's for the rest of his life, holding his College lectureship for sixty years. Cambridge was Foxwell's University, but his work in London was even more extensive and continued from 1876 to 1927. He succeeded his friend Stanley Jevons to the Chair of Economics at University College, London in May 1881 - an appointment he held until 1927. He became Newmarch Lecturer in statistics at University College and lecturer on currency and banking from 1896 at the newly founded London School of Economics. In 1907 he became, jointly with Edward Cannan, the first Professor of Political Economy at the University. His last appointment, which ended in 1931, was as external examiner of the University of Wales.
From the guide to the Notes and papers on currency, 1884-1893, (Senate House Library, University of London)
