"Bagehot: The Life and Times of the Greatest Victorian" by James Grant

This is the latest full biography of Walter Bagehot so I thought it would give it a go as a good general introduction. It is a very accomplished work which does an excellent job - necessary for contemporary readers - of explaining the background to Walter Bagehot's journalism, both in terms of his life and what was going on in the political and financial worlds of London at the time he was writing - mainly the two decades, 1857 - 1877, that spanned his rather too brief adult life.

I thus learned about a lot more here than just Walter Bagehot, which is just as well because although he was a remarkably brilliant man who achieved a huge amount, his personal story was pretty uneventful. There were moments of excitement, such as the evening in June 1865 that he appeared at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester seeking the liberal candidacy at the upcoming general election, only to be mauled and heckled by a more radically inclined audience. Hs mother's mental illness also provides some interest, but overall he lived a quiet private life unsullied by scandal and devoted his energies to writing.

It was also enjoyable and instructive to be introduced to other figures of Bagehot's age who are really more interesting than him in some ways and whose lives I previously knew little about. His father-in-law, James Wilson (1805-1860) is particularly interesting. His was another life cut short suddenly in its prime. But before his death in India, where he was effectively the Finance Minister, he first tried his hand at manufacturing and made then lost a heap of money. He moved into journalism, founding the fantastic Economist Magazine, which I have read every week for decades now, and then into politics. Then there was Bagehot's friend and colleague Richard Holt Hutton (1826-1897) who succeeded James Wilson as the editor of The Economist, but handed the job over to Walter Bagehot in order to edit the literary pages of the Spectator (which I also read religiously every week).

For me though, the most interesting figure I was properly introduced to here was Robert Lowe (1811-1892) whose life was fascinating. He was a partially sighted albino gentleman who started out as an Oxford don, became a barrister and emigrated to Australia where he was elected to the New South Wales Parliament as the member for Sydney. There he and his wife adopted two children whose mother had been murdered by a man Lowe had unsuccessfully defended at his trial. The family then returned to London. Lowe was elected to Parliament in 1852, going on to serve in several Liberal ministries.

His crowning achievement was the Companies Act 1856 which made it vastly easier for people to establish joint stock companies that carried limited liability. It was controversial at the time but has proved in the decades since to have been a seminal point in British economic history. It gave entrepreneurialism a massive boost along with social mobility, enabling families of humble means (including my own) to start companies and make a good living. Lowe later served as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Home Secretary under Gladstone. He was a leading opponent of extending the franchise, believing that until the population was sufficiently well-educated the mass of the working class should not be entitled to vote. He got that judgement badly wrong, but it is interesting that in recent years some more elitist commentators, horrified by the election of people they disapprove of, appalled by Brexit and often obsessed with environmental questions, make this same argument today. So so wrong.

The James Grant Bagehot biography sets out primarily to focus on his financial journalism and its impact - both at the time and today too. This is an area that has not been so well-covered by other biographers and which allows him also to put forward his own arguments about the approach central banks ought to take when faced with banking and other economic crises. James Grant makes well-argued points here and illuminates these aspects of Victorian business life very effectively, but for me personally these passages were a touch dry. The book really came alive when the politics was at the foreground, particularly the debates about constitutional reform in which Bagehot played a key role in, as he still does today.

Bagehot's little 1867 book entitled 'The English Constitution' is terrifically important, and may be Grant underplays this slightly. It is extraordinary that the UK gets along perfectly well without a written constitution. But we do, of course, have constitutional principles which determine what happens in practice. Bagehot set these out in a very comprehensible form and explained their significance. He also set out exactly how all the major political institutions fitted together in practice.

This biography is well-researched and well-written. There are nice turns of phrase here and there - Bagehot's intellect having 'polymathic scope', his essays being seasoned with pinches of classical quotation - and all in all this was an informative and engaging read.