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.