26 Facts About Lord Macaulay

Lord Macaulay's The History of England, which expressed his contention of the superiority of the Western European culture and of the inevitability of its sociopolitical progress, is a seminal example of Whig history that remains commended for its prose style.

Lord Macaulay was born at Rothley Temple in Leicestershire on 25 October 1800, the son of Zachary Lord Macaulay, a Scottish Highlander, who became a colonial governor and abolitionist, and Selina Mills of Bristol, a former pupil of Hannah More.

The young Lord Macaulay was noted as a child prodigy; as a toddler, gazing out of the window from his cot at the chimneys of a local factory, he is reputed to have asked his father whether the smoke came from the fires of hell.

Lord Macaulay was educated at a private school in Hertfordshire, and, subsequently, at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won several prizes, including the Chancellor's Gold Medal in June 1821, and where he in 1825 published a prominent essay on Milton in the Edinburgh Review.

Lord Macaulay did not whilst at Cambridge study classical literature, which he subsequently read in India.

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Lord Macaulay taught himself German, Dutch, and Spanish, and was fluent in French.

Lord Macaulay studied law and he was in 1826 called to the bar, before he took more interest in a political career.

Lord Macaulay, who did not marry nor have children, was rumoured to have fallen in love with Maria Kinnaird, who was the monetarily wealthy ward of Richard 'Conversation' Sharp.

Lord Macaulay became MP for Leeds subsequent to the 1833 enactment of the Reform Act 1832, by which Calne's representation was reduced from two MPs to one, and by which Leeds, which had not been represented before, had two MPs.

Lord Macaulay remained grateful to his former patron, Lansdowne, who remained his friend.

Lord Macaulay recommended the introduction of the English language as the official language of secondary education instruction in all schools where there had been none before, and the training of English-speaking Indians as teachers.

In Indian culture, the term "Lord Macaulay's Children" is sometimes used to refer to people born of Indian ancestry who adopt Western culture as a lifestyle, or display attitudes influenced by colonialism – expressions used disparagingly, and with the implication of disloyalty to one's country and one's heritage.

Lord Macaulay was made Secretary at War in 1839 by Lord Melbourne and was sworn of the Privy Council the same year.

Lord Macaulay argued that copyright is a monopoly and as such has generally negative effects on society.

Lord Macaulay accepted on the express condition that he need not campaign and would not pledge himself to a position on any political issue.

Lord Macaulay sat on the committee to decide on the historical subjects to be painted in the new Palace of Westminster.

Lord Macaulay was amongst its founding trustees and is honoured with one of only three busts above the main entrance.

Lord Macaulay died of a heart attack on 28 December 1859, aged 59, leaving his major work, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second incomplete.

Lord Macaulay's approach has been criticised by later historians for its one-sidedness and its complacency.

Lord Macaulay goes to considerable length, for example, to absolve his main hero William III of any responsibility for the Glencoe massacre.

Lord Macaulay was not above par in literary criticism; his Indian articles will not hold water; and his two most famous reviews, on Bacon and Ranke, show his incompetence.

Lord Macaulay knew nothing respectably before the seventeenth century, he knew nothing of foreign history, of religion, philosophy, science, or art.

Lord Macaulay remains to me one of the greatest of all writers and masters, although I think him utterly base, contemptible and odious for certain reasons which you know.

In 1888, Acton wrote that Lord 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".

Lord Macaulay, Longman went on, was not read now; there was no demand for his books.

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The chief agent of that transformation was surely Lord Macaulay, aided, of course, by the receding relevance of seventeenth-century conflicts to contemporary politics, as the power of the crown waned further, and the civil disabilities of Catholics and Dissenters were removed by legislation.