Walter Bagehot

In 1855, Bagehot founded the National Review with his friend Richard Holt Hutton.[5][6] In 1861, he became editor-in-chief of The Economist. In the 17 years he served as its editor, Bagehot expanded The Economist's reporting on politics and increased its influence among policymakers.

Title page of the first edition of Bagehot's The English Constitution, 1867.[7]

In 1867, Bagehot wrote The English Constitution,[7] a book that explores the nature of the constitution of the United Kingdom, specifically its Parliament and monarchy. It appeared at the same time that Parliament enacted the Reform Act of 1867, requiring Bagehot to write an extended introduction to the second edition which appeared in 1872.

Bagehot also wrote Physics and Politics (1872),[8] in which he examines how civilisations sustain themselves, arguing that in their earliest phase civilisations are very much in opposition to the values of modern liberalism, insofar as they are sustained by conformism and military success, but once they are secured it is possible for them to mature into systems which allow for greater diversity and freedom. His viewpoint was based on a distinction between the qualities of an “accomplished man” and those of a “rude man”, which he considered the result of iterative inheritances by which the “nervous organisation” of the individual became increasingly refined through the generations.[9] He regarded this distinction as a moral achievement whereby through the actions of the will, this “accomplished“ elite was able to morally differentiate themselves from “rude men“ by a “hereditary drill“. He equally applied such reasoning to develop a form of pseudoscientific racism, whereby those of mixed race lacked any “inherited creed” or “fixed traditional sentiments” upon which, he considered, human nature depended. He attempted to provide empirical support for his views by citing John Lubbock and Edward Tylor, although neither of them accepted such arguments for hereditary difference in their writings on human evolution. Tylor in particular rejected Bagehot's view of the centrality of physical heredity and that the modern “savage“ mind was “tattooed over with monstrous images” by which base instincts had been preserved in crevices, as opposed to the accomplished European man, for whom such instincts had been smoothed away through inherited will to exercise reason.[9]

In Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market (1873) Bagehot seeks to explain the world of finance and banking.[10] His observations on finance are often cited by central bankers, most recently in the wake of the global financial crisis which began in 2007. Of particular importance is "Bagehot's Dictum" that in times of financial crisis central banks should lend freely to solvent depository institutions, yet only against sound collateral and at interest rates high enough to dissuade those borrowers that are not genuinely in need.[11]

Lombard Street, 1873.

Bagehot never fully recovered from a bout of pneumonia he suffered in 1867, and he died in 1877 from complications of what was said to be a cold.[12] Collections of Bagehot's literary, political, and economic essays were published after his death. Their subjects ranged from Shakespeare and Disraeli to the price of silver. In honour of his contributions, The Economist's weekly commentary on current affairs in the UK is entitled "Bagehot". Every year, the British Political Studies Association awards the Walter Bagehot Prize for the best dissertation in the field of government and public administration.

Minor planet 2901 Bagehot discovered by Luboš Kohoutek is named in his honor.[13]

• Barrington, Emilie Isabel Wilson (1914). Life of Walter Bagehot. London: Longmans, Green and Co.
• Buchan, Alastair (1960). The Spare Chancellor: The Life of Walter Bagehot. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.
• Grant, James (2019). Bagehot: The Life and Times of the Greatest Victorian. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
• Orel, Harold (1984). Victorian Literary Critics. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Sisson C.H. (1972). The Case of Walter Bagehot. London: Faber and Faber Ltd.
• Stevas, Norman (1959). Walter Bagehot a Study of His Life and Thought. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• Sullivan, Harry R. (1975). Walter Bagehot. Boston: Twayne Publishers.
•  "Bagehot, Walter", A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, 1910 – via Wikisource
• "Bagehot, Walter" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.