Nicholas Crafts

Crafts attended Brunts Grammar School, Mansfield. He was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, and graduated with a BA in economics in 1970. ==Career summary==

• From 1971 to 1972 he was a lecturer in economic history at the University of Exeter. • From 1974 to 1976 he was visiting assistant professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. • From 1977 to 1986 he was a fellow and praelector in economics at University College, Oxford. • From 1987 to 1988 he was professor of economic history at the University of Leeds and from 1988 to 1995 he was professor of economic history, at the University of Warwick. • From 1995 to 2005 he was professor of economic history, at the London School of Economics. • In 2005 he rejoined the University of Warwick, where he lectured in economic history. Crafts was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to economics. ==Personal life and death==

Crafts was born on 9 March 1949 in Nottingham, England. He died from sepsis on 6 October 2023, at the age of 74. Crafts and the British Industrial Revolution Crafts, along with Knick Harley, provided a very influential reinterpretation of the British industrial revolution in the 1980s. They measured the growth rates of various industries, and of the different sectors of the economy, in order to measure the growth of the British economy during the industrial revolution. The found that the overall rate of growth was much lower than had previously been believed, and was heavily concentrated in two industries: cotton and iron. A few historians (though not Crafts himself) used these figures to suggest that it was inappropriate to describe the period as an ‘industrial revolution’. Most, however, argued that although growth rates had been slower and steadier during the industrial revolution than previously imagined, the idea of an ‘industrial revolution’ was still valid. ==Selected publications==

• Edited with Gianni Toniolo. Economic Growth in Europe since 1945, Cambridge University Press, 1996, • 1987, "Economic History," The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 2, pp. 37–42. • 1985, "British Economic Growth during the Industrial Revolution" ==References==