sir George Cornewall Lewis

Statut : Author

1806-1863

Notes : Sir George Cornewall Lewis (1806-63) graduated with a degree in classics and mathematics from Christ Church in Oxford in 1829. Subsequently he became a student of the Middle Temple and was called to the bar in 1831. Between 1833 and 1847 Lewis served in various functions in commissions inquiring into the affairs of Ireland and Malta. After having resigned from his office Lewis returned to the House of Commons in 1847, where he represented Liberal interests, became under-secretary for the home department in 1848 and financial secretary to the treasury during Lord John Russell’s first administration. Lewis lost his parliamentary seat after Russell’s downfall in 1852 and accepted the post of editor of the “Edinburgh Review”. Following his father’s death in 1855 he succeeded to the baronetcy and his father’s parliamentary seat for the Radnor boroughs. In the same year Lewis became chancellor of the exchequer in Lord Palmerston’s first government. In Palmerston’s second administration he accepted the post of home secretary in 1859 and secretary of war in 1861. Among Lewis’s best friends were the Grotes, John Stuart Mill, John and Sarah Austin as well as Dean Milman. He managed to combine publications relating to his high-powered political career with writings and translations in the field of classics and modern languages, was fluent in French, German and Italian, and had studied Spanish, Provençal and Anglo-Saxon. His “Inquiry into the Credibility of the Early Roman History”, which questioned the results of Niebuhr’s “History of Rome” as well as the author’s methods, was written during the break in Lewis’ parliamentary career. His preface constitutes a lucid survey of the study of Roman history from Echard to Niebuhr and argues that the same rules of evidence should be applied in the writing of ancient an modern history.

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