The Blind Victorian Henry Fawcett and British Liberalism

When Henry Fawcett died in 1884 he was among the most famous men of his age. From a relatively humble background he had risen to become Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge, a Liberal MP and a minister in Gladstone's second government. And he had achieved all this despite being blinded at the age of twenty-five in a shooting accident. Indeed, he was probably the first blind MP in British history. This book examines aspects of his life and career - his personal life, including his friendship with the critic and writer, Leslie Stephen, and his marriage to Millicent Garrett Fawcett, the famous feminist; his intellectual contribution to Victorian culture as a friend and disciple of John Stuart Mill; his influential role as a populariser of economic thought from his position at Cambridge; his political outlook and campaigns as a radical Liberal who often opposed Gladstone, his party leader, for his timidity.

List of illustrations; Preface; Acknowledgements; Part I. Personal Life and Sensibility: 1. 'Manly Fellows': Fawcett, Stephen and the liberal temper Stefan Collini; 2. Manliness, masculinity and the mid-Victorian temperament Boyd Hilton; 3. Victorian feminists: Henry and Millicent Garrett Fawcett David Rubinstein; Part II. Economics: 4. Henry Fawcett: the plain man's political economist Phyllis Deane; 5. The plain man's political economist: a discussion Donald Winch; 6. Henry Fawcett and the labour question in mid-Victorian Britain Giacomo Beccattini; Part III. Politics: 7. Henry Fawcett and the Social Science Association: liberal politics, political economy and the working class in mid-Victorian Britain Lawrence Goldman; 8. Fawcett as professional politician Christopher Harvie; Index.

When Henry Fawcett died in 1884 he was among the most famous men of his age. This book examines aspects of his life and career - his personal life, including his friendship with the critic and writer, Leslie Stephen, and his marriage to Millicent Garrett Fawcett, the famous feminist.