Thomas Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay , (born October 25, 1800 in Rothley-Temple , Leicestershire , † December 28, 1859 in Kensington ) was a British historian , poet and politician.

Life

Macaulay

He was the son of Zachary Macaulay, a wealthy Scottish merchant who learned about slavery in Jamaica when he was young and later became an opponent of slavery and co-founded the Clapham sect, a circle that brought together social reformers . He had a close connection to his parents and his two sisters Hannah and Margaret, which is documented by hundreds of surviving letters. For example, he wrote to Margaret:

The affection which I bear to you is the source of the greatest enjoyment which I have in the world. It is that which will determine the whole course of my life. [...] The pleasures of dissipation end in disgust - those of vanity pall with repetition. Ambition itself passes away. But my love for my sweet sisters and friends becomes strong and stronger from day to day and hour to hour.
The affection I feel for you is the source of the highest happiness I have in the world. This is exactly what will determine my entire life. [...] The pleasures of gluttony end in disgust, the vanities bore with their repetitions. The ambition goes there. But love for my dear sisters and friends grows stronger by the day and by the hour.

Macaulay studied at Trinity College , Cambridge, and was then admitted to the bar at Gray's Inn in London , one of the four English bar associations. He appeared as a lawyer in London in 1826 , but devoted himself almost exclusively to the writing career.

He had already won prizes at university for his poems Pompeii (Cambridge 1819) and Evenlug (ibid. 1821). His treatise on Milton in the Edinburgh Review (1825) and other literary and political portraits of Bacon , Machiavelli , Lord Clive , Warren Hastings , Horace Walpole and Lord Chatham quickly made Macaulay famous.

They first appeared without his authorization under the title Critical and miscellaneous essays (Philadelphia 1841) and then collected by himself as Critical and historical essays (London 1843, 3 vols.). The Biographical essays (London 1851) later joined them.

As Macaulay to in his political views Whigs approached, so he procured it in the borough Calne 1830 election to the British House of Commons . Macaulay played a prominent role in the debates that led to the Reform Bill. The Gray government appointed him a member of the Calcutta Council in 1834 , in which capacity Macaulay drafted a penal code , which was published in 1838.

Macaulay. Still of Thomas Woolner in Trinity College (Cambridge)

After returning to Great Britain, he was re-elected to Parliament in Edinburgh in 1839 and received the post of State Secretary in the War Ministry from Lord Melbourne in 1839 , held his position in this position until the resignation of the Whig Ministry in 1841 and was the most outstanding speaker of the Whigoposition during the second Peel Ministry .

In 1842 he published his Lays of Ancient Rome , ancient Roman legends in ballad form , which are characterized by dramatic plot, picturesque depictions and the power of style.

From July 1846 to the end of 1847, Macaulay held the post of Paymaster General with a seat and vote in the cabinet. In the elections of 1847, however, he was not re-elected by the strongly Protestant voters of Edinburgh because of his vote in favor of state support for the Catholic seminary in Maynooth .

He then withdrew from his political career in order to be able to work out his History of England from the accession of James II, which he had begun in 1841 and lasted until 1702 (London 1848–1855, Vol. 1–4; Vol. 5, 1861 ), which, received with enthusiasm, saw five editions in six months and was immediately translated into several languages ​​(German, among others by Friedrich Bülau , Leipzig 1849–1861, 11 vol .; by Wilhelm Beseler , Braunschweig 1852–1861, 12 Vol., In various editions; by Heinrich Paret, Stuttgart 1850–1861, 11 vols.). Macaulay's English history was compared in 19th century German history with that of Leopold von Ranke . That alone makes it clear that he had an extraordinary importance as a historian and was accordingly perceived.

The most exact knowledge of the facts, unsurpassed talent for depicting characters and historical events, the artful arrangement of the material, an abundance of happily chosen quotations, the elegance of the style and a competent disposition make this work a classic of English literature. Macaulay had all the virtues of a historian: criticism, diligence, method, imagination, style, political maturity, and philosophical judgment, if only to a moderate degree. But it was precisely this that established the great success of his work.

As a politician, Macaulay worked more through his ability to speak, the unity of his thinking and the faithfulness of his convictions than through deep ideas. His views are based on the principle of utility and are often superficial.

In the fall of 1848 the University of Glasgow elected him their Lord Rector, and in 1849 he was appointed Professor of Ancient History at the Royal Academy. In 1840 he was elected a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh . Since 1851 he was a foreign member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences .

In July 1852 he was sent from Edinburgh to the House of Commons again, but gave up the seat again in 1856. On September 16, 1857, he was as Baron Macaulay , of Rothley in the County of Leicester , to hereditary peer collected, but he has established in the related House of Lords never taken. In the absence of male offspring, the title expired on his death.

He died on December 28, 1859 in Kensington and was solemnly buried on January 9, 1860 in the "Poet's Corner" of Westminster Abbey.

A complete edition of his works appeared in London in 1860 in 25 volumes; more recent editions are the one obtained by his sister Lady Trevelyan in 1866 in 8 volumes and the last in 18 volumes (1880).

Editions of works in German translation

  • Talk
    • Th.B. Macaulay's speeches . Translated by Friedrich Bülau. Weigel, Leipzig 1854 (2 volumes).
    • Speeches by Thomas Babington Macaulay . Translated by Friedrich Steger. Westermann, Braunschweig 1854 (2 volumes).
  • English history
    • The history of England since the accession of Jacob II. Translated by Friedrich Bülau. Weigel, Leipzig 1849–1861 (11 volumes).
    • History of England from the accession of Jacob II to the death of Wilhelm III. Translated by Wilhelm Beseler (last volume by Theodor Stromberg). Westermann, Braunschweig 1852–1861 (12 volumes).
    • History of England since Jacobs II ascended the throne. Translated by Heinrich Paret. Metzler, Stuttgart 1850–1861 (11 volumes).
  • All works in twenty-five volumes. With the biography and portrait of Macaulay’s . Translated by Wilhelm Beseler and Friedrich Steger . Westermann, Braunschweig 1861.
    • First section (volumes 1–12): History of England (in the translation by Wilhelm Beseler).
    • Second section (volumes 13-25): Selected writings (in the translation by Friedrich Steger).

literature

  • Frederick Arnold: The Public Life of Lord Macaulay. Tinsley Brothers, London 1862.
  • Sir George Otto Trevelyan : Life and letters of Lord Macaulay. 2 volumes. Harper, London 1876. New edition 1978. German by Böttger. 2nd Edition. Jena 1883. ( online ) (Trevelyan was Macaulay's nephew.)
  • J. Cotter Morrison: Macaulay. London 1882.
  • Gottfried Kinkel : Macaulay, his life and his history. Schweighauser, Basel 1879.
  • Ferdinand Litt: Lord Macaulay's views on the form and sphere of influence of the state . Bagel, Düsseldorf 1895 ( digitized version )

Web links

Wikisource: Thomas Babington Macaulay  - Sources and full texts (English)
Wikisource: Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay of Rothley  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Thomas Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

References and comments

  1. ↑ See the entries on Thomas Babington Macaulay and Clapham sect in The Oxford Companion to British History. ISBN 0-19-866176-2 .
  2. ↑ The English quote was taken from a book review in The Times newspaper on July 5, 1973, page 12, by Michael Ratcliffe.
  3. ^ Frederick Arnold: The Public Life of Lord Macaulay . Tinsley Brothers, London 1862. p. 64.
  4. ↑ Detlev Mares: Thomas B. Macaulay, India and the limits of liberal imperialism. In: Uta Fenske, et al. (Ed.): Grenzgang - Grenzgängerinnen - Grenzgänger. St. Ingbert 2017, ISBN 3-86110-635-3 , pp. 171-182.
  5. ^ Carl von Noorden : Ranke and Macaulay. In: Historical magazine. 17, 1867, pp. 87-138.
  6. ^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. (PDF file) Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed February 24, 2020 .
  7. ^ The London Gazette : No. 22039, p. 3075 , September 11, 1857.
personal data
SURNAME Macaulay, Thomas, 1st Baron Macaulay
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 1st Baron Macaulay
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British historian, poet and politician, member of the House of Commons
DATE OF BIRTH October 25, 1800
PLACE OF BIRTH Rothley-Temple , Leicestershire
DATE OF DEATH December 28, 1859
Place of death Kensington