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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay was a British historian, poet and Whig politician who served as the Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841, and as the Paymaster General between 1846 and 1848. He is best known for his The History of England, a seminal example of Whig history which expressed Macaulay's belief in the inevitability of sociopolitical progress and has been widely commended…
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culture · British historian and politician (1800–1859) · historian · politician · poet · poet lawyer · writer · abolitionist · also Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron Macaulay, Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay, Macaulay
Born 25 October 1800 · Died 28 December 1859 · Q315989
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Snopes rated the claim “In 1835, Thomas Babington Macaulay said, "I propose that we replace [India's] old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own … they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation."” Incorrect Attribution.
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
FACTLY rated the claim “Lord Macaulay’s 1835 British Parliamentary address glorifying India and advocating a plan to conquer India.” FALSE.
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
AFP Fact Check rated the claim “This is a speech given to British parliament in 1835 by Lord Macaulay” False.
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
The Quint rated the claim “Lord Macaulay, while addressing the British Parliament on 2 February 1835, deliberated on how India can be conquered if it replaces its old and ancient education system.” FALSE.
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Walter Olson argued for the pre-eminence of Macaulay as a British classical liberal
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Gertrude Himmelfarb wrote: [M]ost professional historians have long since given up reading Macaulay, as they have given up writing the kind of history he wrote and thinking about history as he did
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
That a reason Macaulay's History of England "still commands respect is that it was based upon a prodigious amount of research"
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Considered Macaulay's Essays as "exclusively and intolerantly English"
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Acton wrote that Macaulay "had done more than any writer in the literature of the world for the propagation of the Liberal faith, and he was not only the greatest, but the most representative, Englishman then living"
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Acton asserted that: We must never judge the quality of a teaching by the quality of the Teacher, or allow the spots to shut out the sun
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Acton classed Macaulay (with Burke and Gladstone) as one "of the three greatest Liberals"
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Was followed by the Criminal Procedure Code in 1872 and the Civil Procedure Code in 1908
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Died 1859-12-28.
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
“The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
“The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
“The great cause of revolutions is this, that while nations move onward, constitutions stand still.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
“Out of his surname they have coined an epithet for a knave, and out of his Christian name a synonym for the Devil.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
“Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
“I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a king who did not love reading.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
“Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Was raised to the peerage as Baron Macaulay, of Rothley in the County of Leicester, but seldom attended the House of Lords
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Career landmark: member of the 16th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1852–1856).
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
The voters of Edinburgh offered to re-elect him to Parliament
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
And says he was moved to tears by Virgil's poetry
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Was elected Rector of the University of Glasgow, a position with no administrative duties, often awarded by the students to men of political or literary fame
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Career landmark: Paymaster General (1846–1848).
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Macaulay addressed the issue of copyright law
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Macaulay devoted more time to literary work, and returned to office as Paymaster General in 1846 in Lord John Russell's administration
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Career landmark: member of the 14th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1841–1847).
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
By Lord Melbourne and was sworn of the Privy Council the same year
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Career landmark: member of the 13th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1839–1841).
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Career landmark: Secretary at War (1839–1841).
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Became MP again in Edinburgh in the following year
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
A school named La Martinière, founded by Major General Claude Martin, had one of its houses named after him), but subsequent Governors-General took a more conciliatory approach to existing Indian education
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Macaulay went to India, where he served on the Supreme Council between 1834 and 1838
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Required, as a consequence of the penury of his father, a more remunerative office, than that of the unremunerated office of an MP, from which he resigned after the passing of the Government of India Act 1833 to accept a
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Career landmark: member of the 11th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1832–1834).
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Career landmark: member of the 10th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1831–1832).
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Accepted the invitation of the Marquess of Lansdowne that he become Member of Parliament for the pocket borough of Calne
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Career landmark: member of the 9th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1830–1831).
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Career landmark: member of the 8th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1830–1830).
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
And in a series of anonymous letters to The Morning Chronicle, censured the analysis of indentured labour by the British Colonial Office expert Colonel Thomas Moody, Kt
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Was called to the bar, before he took more interest in a political career
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Published a prominent essay on Milton in the Edinburgh Review
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Born 1800-10-25.
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