William Stanley Jevons

William Stanley Jevons (1835–1882) was an English economist and logician. Born in Liverpool, he left his studies to work as an assayer at the mint in Sydney, where he became interested in political economy, and later taught at Owens College in Manchester and University College London. The Coal Question warned that Britain's prosperity depended on a dwindling resource, and his Theory of Political Economy helped found the marginal theory of value. In logic he built a mechanical logical piano that worked out conclusions from premises, and wrote The Principles of Science. He drowned while bathing near Hastings at the age of forty-six.