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{{Short description|British historian and politician (1800–1859)}}
{{for|another person with the name|Thomas Babington Macaulay (Nigeria)}}
{{redirect|Baron Macaulay|the British Labour politician|Donald Macaulay, Baron Macaulay of Bragar}}
{{redirect|Thomas Macaulay}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}}
{{use British English|date=August 2013}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific-prefix = [[The Right Honourable]]
| name = The Lord Macaulay
| honorific-suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|PC|FRS|FRSE}}
| image = Thomas Babington Macaulay2.jpg
| imagesize =
| caption = [[Photogravure]] of Macaulay by [[Antoine Claudet]]
| signature = Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (signature).svg
| order1 = [[Secretary at War]]
| term_start1 = 27 September 1839
| term_end1 = 30 August 1841
| monarch1 = [[Victoria of the United Kingdom|Victoria]]
| primeminister1 = [[The Viscount Melbourne]]
| predecessor1 = [[Henry Grey, 3rd Earl Grey|Viscount Howick]]
| successor1 = [[Sir Henry Hardinge]]
| order2 = [[Paymaster General]]
| term_start2 = 7 July 1846
| term_end2 = 8 May 1848
| monarch2 = [[Victoria of the United Kingdom|Victoria]]
| primeminister2 = [[Lord John Russell]]
| predecessor2 = [[Bingham Baring, 2nd Baron Ashburton|Hon. Bingham Baring]]
| successor2 = [[Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville|The Earl Granville]]
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1800|10|25}}
| birth_place = [[Rothley Temple]], [[Leicestershire]], England
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1859|12|28|1800|10|25}}
| death_place = [[London]], England
| nationality = English
| party = [[Whig (British political faction)|Whig]]
| alma_mater = [[Trinity College, Cambridge]]
| occupation = Politician
| profession = Historian, poet
| parents = [[Zachary Macaulay]]<br />[[Selina Mills]]
}}

'''Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay''', {{post-nominals|country=GBR|sep=,|PC|FRS|FRSE}} ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|b|æ|b|ɪ|ŋ|t|ən|_|m|ə|ˈ|k|ɔː|l|i}}; 25 October 1800 – 28 December 1859) was a British historian, poet and [[Whig (British political faction)|Whig]] politician who served as the [[Secretary at War]] between 1839 and 1841, and as the [[Paymaster General]] between 1846 and 1848. He is best known for his ''[[The History of England from the Accession of James the Second|The History of England]]'', a seminal example of [[Whig history]] which expressed Macaulay's belief in the [[idea of progress|inevitability of sociopolitical progress]] and has been widely commended for its prose style.<ref name="MacKenzie2013">{{citation|first=John|last= MacKenzie|title=A family empire|work=BBC History Magazine|date=January 2013}}</ref> Macaulay also played a substantial role in determining [[History of education in the Indian subcontinent#Reform|India's education policy]].

==Early life==
Macaulay was born at [[Rothley Temple]]<ref>{{cite book|title=Biographical index of former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002|year=2006|publisher=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|isbn=090219884X|url=https://rse.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/RSE-Fellows-BiographicalIndex-2.pdf}}</ref> in [[Leicestershire]] on 25 October 1800, the son of [[Zachary Macaulay]], a Scottish [[Scottish Highlands|Highlander]], who became a [[Governor#British Empire and Commonwealth of Nations|colonial governor]] and [[Abolitionism in the United Kingdom|abolitionist]], and [[Selina Mills]] of [[Bristol]], a former pupil of [[Hannah More]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Thomas Babbington Macaulay|url=http://www.josephsmithacademy.org/wiki/thomas-babington-macaulay/|publisher=Josephsmithacademy|access-date=10 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180512191015/http://www.josephsmithfoundation.org/wiki/thomas-babington-macaulay/|archive-date=12 May 2018}}</ref> They named their first child after his uncle [[Thomas Babington]], a [[Leicestershire]] landowner and politician,<ref>{{cite web|last1=Symonds|first1=P. A.|title=Babington, Thomas (1758–1837), of Rothley Temple, nr. Leicester.|url=http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/babington-thomas-1758-1837|website=History of Parliament on-line|publisher=Institute of Historical Research|access-date=3 September 2016}}</ref>{{sfn|Kuper|2009|p=146}} who had married Zachary's sister Jean.{{sfn|Knight|1867|p=8}} The young 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.{{sfn|Sullivan|2010|p=21}}

He was educated at a private school in [[Hertfordshire]], and, subsequently, at [[Trinity College, Cambridge]],<ref>{{acad|id=FML817TB|name=Macaulay, Thomas Babington}}</ref> where he won several prizes, including the [[Chancellor's Gold Medal]] in June 1821,<ref name=ODNB>{{cite ODNB|first=William |last=Thomas|id=17349|title=Macaulay, Thomas Babington, Baron Macaulay (1800–1859), historian, essayist, and poet}}</ref> and where he in 1825 published a prominent essay on [[John Milton|Milton]] in the ''[[Edinburgh Review]]''. Macaulay did not study classical literature while at Cambridge, though he subsequently did when he was in India. In his letters he describes his reading of the ''[[Aeneid]]'' whilst he was in Malvern in 1851, and says he was moved to tears by [[Virgil]]'s poetry.{{sfn|Galton|1869|p=23}} He taught himself German, Dutch and Spanish, and was fluent in French.{{sfn|Sullivan|2010|p=9}} He studied law and in 1826 he was [[called to the bar]], before he took more interest in a political career.{{sfn|Pattison|1911|p=193}} Macaulay in the ''Edinburgh Review'' in 1827, and in a series of anonymous letters to ''[[The Morning Chronicle]]'',<ref name="Rupprecht">{{cite journal|last1=Rupprecht|first1=Anita|date=September 2012|title='When he gets among his countrymen, they tell him that he is free': Slave Trade Abolition, Indentured Africans and a Royal Commission|journal=Slavery & Abolition|volume=33 |issue=3 |pages= 435–455|doi=10.1080/0144039X.2012.668300|s2cid=144301729}}</ref> censured the analysis of indentured labour by the British Colonial Office expert [[Thomas Moody (British Army officer)|Colonel Thomas Moody, Kt.]]<ref name="Rupprecht"/><ref>Thomas Babington Macaulay, ''Social and Industrial Capacities of the Negroes'' ([[Edinburgh]] Review, March 1827), collected in ''Critical, Historical and Miscellaneous Essays, Volume 6'' (1860), pp. 361–404.</ref> Macaulay's evangelical Whig father [[Zachary Macaulay]], who desired a 'free black peasantry' rather than equality for Africans,<ref name="Interest">{{cite book|last=Taylor|first=Michael |title=The Interest: How the British Establishment Resisted The Abolition of Slavery|year=2020|publisher=Penguin Random House (Paperback)|pages=107–116}}</ref> also censured, in the ''[[Anti-Slavery Reporter]]'', Moody's contentions.<ref name="Rupprecht"/>

Macaulay, who did not marry nor have children, was rumoured to have fallen in love with [[Maria Kinnaird]], who was the wealthy ward of [[Richard Sharp (politician)|Richard 'Conversation' Sharp]].{{sfn|Cropper|1864|p=|ps=: see entry for 22 November 1831}} Macaulay's strongest emotional relationships were with his youngest sisters: Margaret, who died while he was in India, and Hannah, to whose daughter Margaret, whom he called 'Baba', he was also attached.{{sfn|Sullivan|2010|p=466}}

==India (1834–1838)==
[[File:Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron Macaulay by John Partridge.jpg|thumb|Macaulay by John Partridge]]
Macaulay in 1830 accepted the invitation of [[Henry Petty-FitzMaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne|the Marquess of Lansdowne]] that he become Member of Parliament for the [[Rotten and pocket boroughs|pocket borough]] of [[Calne (UK Parliament constituency)|Calne]]. Macaulay's maiden speech in Parliament advocated abolition of the [[Disabilities (Jewish)|civil disabilities of the Jews in the UK]]. Macaulay's subsequent speeches in favour of parliamentary reform were commended.<ref name="ODNB"/> He became MP for [[Leeds (UK Parliament constituency)|Leeds]]<ref name=ODNB/> 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. Macaulay remained grateful to his former patron, Lansdowne, who remained his friend.

Macaulay was [[Secretary to the Board of Control]] under [[Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey|Lord Grey]] from 1832 until he in 1833 required, as a consequence of the penury of his father, a more remunerative office, than that of [[Salaries of members of the United Kingdom Parliament#Historical salaries|the unremunerated office of an MP]], from which he resigned after the passing of the [[Government of India Act 1833]] to accept an appointment as first Law Member of the [[Council of India|Governor-General's Council]]. In 1834 Macaulay went to India, where he served on the Supreme Council between 1834 and 1838.{{sfn|Evans| 2002| p= 260}}
His [[s:Minutes on Education In India, Written in the Years 1835, 1836 and 1837/Minute by Mr. Macaulay (2 February, 1835)|''Minute on Indian Education'']] of February 1835 was primarily responsible for the introduction of Western institutional education to India.{{citation_needed|date=September 2023}}

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.<ref name="MacKenzie2013"/>
In his minute, he urged [[Lord William Bentinck]], the then-[[Governor-General of India|Governor-General]] to reform secondary education on [[utilitarian]] lines to deliver "useful learning", a phrase that to him was synonymous with Western culture. There was no tradition of secondary education in vernacular languages; the institutions supported by the [[East India Company]] taught either in [[Sanskrit]] or [[Persian language|Persian]].{{citation_needed|date=September 2023}} Hence, he argued, "We have to educate a people who cannot at present be educated by means of their mother-tongue. We must teach them some foreign language." Macaulay argued that Sanskrit and Persian were no more accessible than English to the speakers of the Indian vernacular languages and existing Sanskrit and Persian texts were of little use for "useful learning". In one of the less scathing passages of the Minute he [[s:Minutes on Education In India, Written in the Years 1835, 1836 and 1837/Minute by Mr. Macaulay (2 February, 1835)#LanguageWorthKnowing|wrote]]:
<blockquote>I have no knowledge of either Sanskrit or Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanskrit works. I have conversed both here and at home with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists
themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.</blockquote>

He further [[s:Minutes on Education In India, Written in the Years 1835, 1836 and 1837/Minute by Mr. Macaulay (2 February, 1835)#OrientalPoetryAndHistory|argued]]:
<blockquote>It will hardly be disputed, I suppose, that the department of literature in which the Eastern writers stand highest is poetry. And I certainly never met with any orientalist who ventured to maintain that the Arabic and Sanskrit poetry could be compared to that of the great European nations. But when we pass from works of imagination to works in which facts are recorded and general principles investigated, the superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in England. In every branch of physical or moral philosophy, the relative position of the two nations is nearly the same.</blockquote>

Hence, from the sixth year of schooling onwards, instruction should be in European learning, with English as the medium of instruction. This would create a class of anglicised Indians who would serve as cultural intermediaries between the British and the Indians; the creation of such a class was necessary before any reform of vernacular education. He [[s:Minutes on Education In India, Written in the Years 1835, 1836 and 1837/Minute by Mr. Macaulay (2 February, 1835)#ClassOfIndiansAsInterpreters|stated]]: <blockquote>I feel with them that it is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.</blockquote>

Macaulay's largely coincided with Bentinck's views{{sfn|Spear|1938|pp=78–101}} and Bentinck's English Education Act 1835 closely matched Macaulay's recommendations (in 1836, a school named [[La Martiniere Calcutta|La Martinière]], founded by Major General Claude Martin, had one of its houses named after him), but subsequent Governors-General took a more conciliatory approach to existing Indian education.

His final years in India were devoted to the creation of a Penal Code, as the leading member of the Law Commission. In the aftermath of the [[Indian Mutiny of 1857]], Macaulay's criminal law proposal was enacted.{{citation needed|date=October 2017}} The [[Indian Penal Code]] in 1860 was followed by the Criminal Procedure Code in 1872 and the [[Code of Civil Procedure (India)|Civil Procedure Code]] in 1908. The [[Indian Penal Code]] inspired counterparts in most other [[British colonies]], and to date many of these laws are still in effect in places as far apart as [[Pakistan]], [[Malaysia]], [[Myanmar]], [[Bangladesh]], [[Sri Lanka]], [[Nigeria]] and [[Zimbabwe]], as well as in [[India]] itself until recently.<ref>{{Cite web |title=BHARATIYA NYAYA SANHITA IN PLACE OF INDIAN PENAL CODE |url=https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2115169 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20250329151547/https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2115169 |archive-date=2025-03-29 |access-date=2025-10-01 |website=www.pib.gov.in}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title='Government of India' – A Speech Delivered in the House of Commons on the 10th of July 1833 |url=http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_commons_indiagovt_1833.html |website=www.columbia.edu |publisher=Columbia university and Project Gutenberg |access-date=21 September 2018}}</ref> This includes Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which remains the basis for [[LGBT rights by country or territory|laws which criminalize homosexuality]] in several [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth nations]].<ref>{{cite news |title=377: The British colonial law that left an anti-LGBTQ legacy in Asia |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-57606847 |website=www.bbc.co.uk |date=28 June 2021 |publisher=BBC News |access-date=29 June 2021}}</ref>

In Indian culture, the term "Macaulay's Children" is sometimes used to refer to people born of Indian ancestry who adopt Western culture as a lifestyle, or display [[Colonial mentality#The Indian Subcontinent|attitudes influenced by colonialism]] ("[[Macaulayism]]")<ref>[https://neerajatri.in/think-it-over-macaulay-and-indias-rootless-generations Think it Over: Macaulay and India's rootless generations]{{Dead link|date=November 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> – expressions used disparagingly, and with the implication of disloyalty to one's country and one's heritage. In independent India, Macaulay's idea of the [[civilising mission]] has been used by Dalitists, in particular by [[neo-liberalist]]{{citation needed|date=May 2025}} [[Chandra Bhan Prasad]], as a "creative appropriation for self-empowerment", based on the view that the Dalit community was empowered by Macaulay's deprecation of Hindu culture and support for Western-style education in India.{{sfn|Watt|Mann|2011|p=23}}

Domenico Losurdo states that "Macaulay acknowledged that the English colonists in India behaved like [[Sparta]]ns confronting ''[[helot]]s'': we are dealing with 'a race of sovereign' or a 'sovereign caste', wielding absolute power over its 'serfs'."{{sfn|Losurdo|2014|p=250}} Losurdo noted that this did not prompt any doubts from Macaulay over the right of Britain to administer its colonies in an autocratic fashion; for example, while Macaulay described the administration of [[governor-general of India]] [[Warren Hastings]] as being so despotic that "all the injustice of former oppressors, Asiatic and European, appeared as a blessing", he (Hastings) deserved "high admiration" and a rank among "the most remarkable men in our history" for "having saved England and civilisation".{{sfn|Losurdo|2014|pp=250–251}}

===Return to British public life (1838–1857)===
[[File:Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron Macaulay by Sir Francis Grant.jpg|thumb|right|Macaulay by Sir Francis Grant]]
Returning to Britain in 1838, he became MP again in [[Edinburgh (UK Parliament constituency)|Edinburgh]] in the following year. He was made [[Secretary at War]] in 1839 by [[Lord Melbourne]] and was sworn of the [[Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council|Privy Council]] the same year.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=19774 |date=1 October 1839 |page=1841 }}</ref> In 1841 Macaulay addressed the issue of [[copyright]] law. Macaulay's position, slightly modified, became the basis of [[copyright law]] in the English-speaking world for many decades.<ref name=asu>{{Cite web |url=http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/OpposingCopyrightExtension/commentary/MacaulaySpeeches.html |title=Macaulay's speeches on copyright law |access-date=8 December 2015 |archive-date=24 December 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161224192038/http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/OpposingCopyrightExtension/commentary/MacaulaySpeeches.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> Macaulay argued that copyright is a monopoly and as such has generally negative effects on society.<ref name=asu/> After the fall of Melbourne's government in 1841 Macaulay devoted more time to literary work, and returned to office as [[Paymaster General]] in 1846 in [[Lord John Russell]]'s administration.

In the election of 1847 he lost his seat in Edinburgh.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bartleby.com/344/266.html|title=Lord Macaulay|access-date=1 November 2013|publisher=Bartleby}}</ref> He attributed the loss to the anger of religious zealots over his speech in favour of expanding the annual government grant to [[Maynooth College]] in Ireland, which trained young men for the Catholic priesthood; some observers also attributed his loss to his neglect of local issues. In 1849 he was elected [[Rector of the University of Glasgow]], a position with no administrative duties, often awarded by the students to men of political or literary fame.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Rector|url=http://www.universitystory.gla.ac.uk/officer/?id=6|publisher=Glasgow university|access-date=1 November 2013|archive-date=16 December 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081216071209/http://www.universitystory.gla.ac.uk/officer/?id=6|url-status=dead}}</ref> He also received the [[freedom of the city]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Biography of Lord Macaulay|url=http://www.sacklunch.net/biography/M/LordMacaulay.html|publisher=Sacklunch|access-date=1 November 2013}}</ref>

In 1852, the voters of Edinburgh offered to re-elect him to Parliament. He accepted on the express condition that he need not campaign and would not pledge himself to a position on any political issue. Remarkably, he was elected on those terms.{{citation needed|date=August 2019}} He seldom attended the House due to ill health. His weakness after suffering a heart attack caused him to postpone for several months making his speech of thanks to the Edinburgh voters. He resigned his seat in January 1856.<ref name="Lord Macaulay">{{cite news|title=Lord Macaulay|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1301&dat=18600315&id=WFUVAAAAIBAJ&pg=6336,5147988|access-date=1 November 2013|newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald|date=15 March 1860}}</ref> In 1857 he was raised to the [[peerage]] as '''Baron Macaulay''', of [[Rothley]] in the [[County of Leicester]],<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=22039 |date=11 September 1857 |page=3075 }}</ref> but seldom attended the [[House of Lords]].<ref name="Lord Macaulay"/>

===Later life (1857–1859)===
[[File:The Funeral of Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron Macaulay by Sir George Scharf.jpg|thumb|250px|''The Funeral of Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron Macaulay'', by Sir [[George Scharf]]]]

Macaulay sat on the committee to decide on the historical subjects to be painted in the new [[Palace of Westminster]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Thomas Babington Macaulay|url=http://www.clanmacfarlanegenealogy.info/genealogy/TNGWebsite/getperson.php?personID=I48712&tree=CC|publisher=Clanmacfarlanegenealogy|access-date=25 October 2013}}</ref> The need to collect reliable portraits of notable figures from history for this project led to the foundation of the [[National Portrait Gallery (United Kingdom)|National Portrait Gallery]], which was formally established on 2 December 1856.<ref>{{cite journal |title=From the Director |url=http://www.npg.org.uk/assets/migrated_assets/docs/support/individual/face2face16.pdf |journal=Face to Face |date=Spring 2006 |issue=16 |publisher=[[National Portrait Gallery (United Kingdom)|National Portrait Gallery]] |access-date=25 October 2013}}</ref> Macaulay was amongst its founding trustees and is honoured with one of only three busts above the main entrance.

During his later years his health made work increasingly difficult for him. He 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.<ref>{{cite news |title=Death of Lord Macaulay|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1860/01/17/news/death-of-lord-macaulay.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=17 January 1960 |access-date=25 October 2013}}</ref> On 9 January 1860 he was buried in [[Westminster Abbey]], in [[Poets' Corner]],<ref>[[Arthur Penrhyn Stanley|Stanley, A.P.]], ''Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey'' ([[London]]; [[John Murray (publishing house)|John Murray]]; [[1882]]), p. 222.</ref>  near a statue of [[Joseph Addison|Addison]].<ref name=ODNB/> As he had no children, his peerage became extinct on his death.

Macaulay's nephew, [[Sir George Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet|Sir George Trevelyan, Bt]], wrote the "Life and Letters" of his uncle. His great-nephew was the Cambridge historian [[G. M. Trevelyan]].

==Literary works==
As a young man he composed the ballads ''Ivry'' and ''The Armada'',{{sfn|Macaulay |1881|p=}} which he later included as part of ''[[Lays of Ancient Rome]]'', a series of very popular poems about heroic episodes in Roman history which he began composing in India and continued in Rome, finally publishing in 1842.<ref name="Sullivan">{{cite book |last1=Sullivan |first1=Robert E |title=Macaulay |date=2009 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-0674054691 |page=251 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hVVEtXHNup4C |access-date=16 December 2019}}</ref> The most famous of them, ''[[s:Horatius|Horatius]]'', concerns the heroism of [[Horatius Cocles]]. It contains the oft-quoted lines:<ref>{{cite web|title=Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lord Macaulay Horatius|url=http://www.englishverse.com/poems/horatius|publisher=English verse|access-date=23 October 2013}}</ref>

{{poemquote|Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
"To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods?"}}

His essays, originally published in the ''[[Edinburgh Review]]'', were collected as ''[[Critical and Historical Essays (Macaulay)|Critical and Historical Essays]]'' in 1843.{{sfn|Macaulay|1941|p=x}}

==Historian==
During the 1840s, Macaulay undertook his most famous work, ''[[The History of England from the Accession of James the Second]]'', publishing the first two volumes in 1848. At first, he had planned to bring his history down to the reign of [[George III]]. After publication of his first two volumes, his hope was to complete his work with the death of [[Anne, Queen of Great Britain|Queen Anne]] in 1714.{{sfn|Macaulay|1848|loc= Vol. V, title page and prefatory "Memoir of Lord Macaulay"}}

The third and fourth volumes, bringing the history to the [[Peace of Ryswick]], were published in 1855. At his death in 1859 he was working on the fifth volume. This, bringing the ''History'' down to the death of [[William III of England|William III]], was prepared for publication by his sister, Lady Trevelyan, after his death.{{sfn|Macaulay|1848|p=}}

==Political writing==
Macaulay's political writings are famous for their ringing prose and for their confident, sometimes dogmatic, emphasis on a progressive model of British history, according to which the country threw off superstition, autocracy and confusion to create a balanced constitution and a forward-looking culture combined with freedom of belief and expression. This model of human progress has been called the [[Whig interpretation of history]]. This philosophy appears most clearly in the essays Macaulay wrote for the ''[[Edinburgh Review]]'' and other publications, which were collected in book form and a steady best-seller throughout the 19th century. But it is also reflected in ''History''; the most stirring passages in the work are those that describe the "[[Glorious Revolution]]" of 1688.

Macaulay's approach has been criticised by later historians for its one-sidedness and its complacency. [[Karl Marx]] referred to him as a 'systematic falsifier of history'.{{sfn|Marx|1906|p=788|loc=Ch. XXVII|ps=: "I quote Macaulay, because as a systematic falsifier of history he minimizes facts of this kind as much as possible."}}  His tendency to see history as a drama led him to treat figures whose views he opposed as if they were villains, while characters he approved of were presented as heroes. Macaulay goes to considerable length, for example, to absolve his main hero [[William III of England|William III]] of any responsibility for the [[Glencoe massacre]]. [[Winston Churchill]] devoted a [[Marlborough: His Life and Times|four-volume biography]] of the [[Duke of Marlborough]] to rebutting Macaulay's slights on his ancestor, expressing hope "to fasten the label 'Liar' to his genteel coat-tails".{{sfn|Churchill|1947|p=132|ps=: "It is beyond our hopes to overtake Lord Macaulay. The grandeur and sweep of his story-telling carries him swiftly along, and with every generation he enters new fields. We can only hope that Truth will follow swiftly enough to fasten the label 'Liar' to his genteel coat-tails."}} Later historians have also highlighted his views on non-European cultures and philosophies as explicitly racist, citing, for example, his remark that 'a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia'.

==Legacy as a historian==
The Liberal historian [[Lord Acton]] read Macaulay's ''History of England'' four times and later described himself as "a raw English schoolboy, primed to the brim with Whig politics" but "not [[Whiggism]] only, but Macaulay in particular that I was so full of." However, Acton would later find fault in Macaulay.{{sfn|Hill|2011|p=25}} In 1880 Acton classed Macaulay (with [[Edmund Burke|Burke]] and [[Gladstone]]) as one "of the three greatest Liberals".{{sfn|Paul|1904|p=57}} In 1883, he advised [[Mary Gladstone]]:

{{blockquote|[T]he Essays are really flashy and superficial. He was not above par in literary criticism; his Indian articles will not hold water; and his two most famous reviews, on [[Francis Bacon|Bacon]] and [[Leopold von Ranke|Ranke]], show his incompetence. The essays are only pleasant reading, and a key to half the prejudices of our age. It is the ''History'' (with one or two speeches) that is wonderful. He knew nothing respectably before the seventeenth century, he knew nothing of foreign history, of religion, philosophy, science, or art. His account of debates has been thrown into the shade by Ranke, his account of diplomatic affairs, by [[Onno Klopp|Klopp]]. He is, I am persuaded, grossly, basely unfair. Read him therefore to find out how it comes that the most unsympathetic of critics can think him very nearly the greatest of English writers...{{sfn|Paul|1904|p=173}} }}

In 1885, Acton asserted that: {{blockquote|We must never judge the quality of a teaching by the quality of the Teacher, or allow the spots to shut out the sun. It would be unjust, and it would deprive us of nearly all that is great and good in this world. Let me remind you of Macaulay. He 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.{{sfn|Paul|1904|p=210}} }}

In 1888, Acton wrote that 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".{{sfn|Lord Acton|1919|p=482}}

[[W. S. Gilbert]] described Macaulay's wit, "who wrote of [[Anne, Queen of Great Britain|Queen Anne]]" as part of Colonel Calverley's Act I patter song in the libretto of the 1881 operetta ''[[Patience (opera)|Patience]]''. (This line may well have been a joke about the Colonel's pseudo-intellectual bragging, as most educated Victorians knew that Macaulay did ''not'' write of Queen Anne; the ''History'' encompasses only as far as the death of William III in 1702, who was succeeded by Anne.)

[[Herbert Butterfield]]'s ''The Whig Interpretation of History'' (1931) attacked Whig history. The Dutch historian [[Pieter Geyl]], writing in 1955, considered Macaulay's ''Essays'' as "exclusively and intolerantly English".{{sfn|Geyl|1958|p=30}}

On 7 February 1954, [[Charles Wilson, 1st Baron Moran|Lord Moran]], doctor to the Prime Minister, Sir [[Winston Churchill]], recorded in his diary: {{blockquote|[[Randolph Churchill|Randolph]], who is writing a life of the late Lord Derby for [[Longman]]'s, brought to luncheon a young man of that name. His talk interested the P.M.&nbsp;... Macaulay, Longman went on, was not read now; there was no demand for his books. The P.M. grunted that he was very sorry to hear this. Macaulay had been a great influence in his young days.{{sfn|Lord Moran|1968|pp=553–554}}}}

[[George Richard Potter]], Professor and Head of the Department of History at the [[University of Sheffield]] from 1931 to 1965, stated "In an age of long letters&nbsp;... Macaulay's hold their own with the best".{{sfn|Potter|1959|p=10}} However Potter also stated: {{blockquote|For all his linguistic abilities he seems never to have tried to enter into sympathetic mental contact with the classical world or with the Europe of his day. It was an insularity that was impregnable&nbsp;... If his outlook was insular, however, it was surely British rather than English.{{sfn|Potter|1959|p=25}} }}

With regards to Macaulay's determination to inspect physically the places mentioned in his ''History'', Potter said: {{blockquote|Much of the success of the famous third chapter of the ''History'' which may be said to have introduced the study of [[social history]], and even&nbsp;... [[local history]], was due to the intense local knowledge acquired on the spot. As a result it is a superb, living picture of Great Britain in the latter half of the seventeenth century&nbsp;... No description of the [[Siege of Derry|relief of Londonderry]] in a major history of England existed before 1850; after his visit there and the narrative written round it no other account has been needed&nbsp;... Scotland came fully into its own and from then until now it has been a commonplace that [[English history]] is incomprehensible without Scotland.{{sfn|Potter|1959|p=29}} }}

Potter noted that Macaulay has had many critics, some of whom put forward some salient points about the deficiency of Macaulay's ''History'' but added: "The severity and the minuteness of the criticism to which the ''History of England'' has been subjected is a measure of its permanent value. It is worth every ounce of powder and shot that is fired against it." Potter concluded that "in the long roll of English historical writing from [[Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon|Clarendon]] to [[G. M. Trevelyan|Trevelyan]] only [[Edward Gibbon|Gibbon]] has surpassed him in security of reputation and certainty of immortality".{{sfn|Potter|1959|p=35}}

[[Piers Brendon]] wrote that Macaulay is "the only British rival to Gibbon."{{sfn|Brendon|2010|p=126}} In 1972, J.R. Western wrote that: "Despite its age and blemishes, Macaulay's ''History of England'' has still to be superseded by a full-scale modern history of the period."{{sfn|Western|1972|p=403}} In 1974 [[J. P. Kenyon]] stated that: "As is often the case, Macaulay had it exactly right."{{sfn|Kenyon|1974|p=47|loc=n. 14}}

[[W. A. Speck]] wrote in 1980, that a reason Macaulay's ''History of England'' "still commands respect is that it was based upon a prodigious amount of research".{{sfn|Speck|1980|p=57}} Speck stated: {{blockquote|Macaulay's reputation as an historian has never fully recovered from the condemnation it implicitly received in Herbert Butterfield's devastating attack on ''The Whig Interpretation of History''. Though he was never cited by name, there can be no doubt that Macaulay answers to the charges brought against Whig historians, particularly that they study the past with reference to the present, class people in the past as those who furthered progress and those who hindered it, and judge them accordingly.{{sfn|Speck|1980|p=64}} }}

According to Speck: {{blockquote|[Macaulay too often] denies the past has its own validity, treating it as being merely a prelude to his own age. This is especially noticeable in the third chapter of his ''History of England'', when again and again he contrasts the backwardness of 1685 with the advances achieved by 1848. Not only does this misuse the past, it also leads him to exaggerate the differences.{{sfn|Speck|1980|p= 64}} }}

On the other hand, Speck also wrote that Macaulay "took pains to present the virtues even of a rogue, and he painted the virtuous warts and all",{{sfn|Speck|1980|p=65}} and that "he was never guilty of suppressing or distorting evidence to make it support a proposition which he knew to be untrue".{{sfn|Speck|1980|p=67}} Speck concluded: {{blockquote|What is in fact striking is the extent to which his ''History of England'' at least has survived subsequent research. Although it is often dismissed as inaccurate, it is hard to pinpoint a passage where he is categorically in error&nbsp;... his account of events has stood up remarkably well&nbsp;... His interpretation of the [[Glorious Revolution]] also remains the essential starting point for any discussion of that episode&nbsp;... What has not survived, or has become subdued, is Macaulay's confident belief in progress. It was a dominant creed in the era of the [[Great Exhibition]]. But [[Auschwitz]] and [[Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki|Hiroshima]] destroyed this century's claim to moral superiority over its predecessors, while the exhaustion of natural resources raises serious doubts about the continuation even of material progress into the next.{{sfn|Speck|1980|p=67}} }}

In 1981, [[J. W. Burrow]] argued that Macaulay's ''History of England'': {{blockquote|...&nbsp;is not simply partisan; a judgement, like that of [[Charles Harding Firth|Firth]], that Macaulay was always the Whig politician could hardly be more inapposite. Of course Macaulay thought that the Whigs of the seventeenth century were correct in their fundamental ideas, but the hero of the ''History'' was William, who, as Macaulay says, was certainly no Whig&nbsp;... If this was [[Whiggism]] it was so only, by the mid-nineteenth century, in the most extended and inclusive sense, requiring only an acceptance of parliamentary government and a sense of gravity of precedent. [[Herbert Butterfield|Butterfield]] says, rightly, that in the nineteenth century the Whig view of history became the English view. The chief agent of that transformation was surely 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 [[English Dissenters|Dissenters]] were removed by legislation. The ''History'' is much more than the vindication of a party; it is an attempt to insinuate a view of politics, pragmatic, reverent, essentially [[Burkean]], informed by a high, even tumid sense of the worth of public life, yet fully conscious of its interrelations with the wider progress of society; it embodies what [[Henry Hallam|Hallam]] had merely asserted, a sense of the privileged possession by Englishmen of their history, as well as of the epic dignity of government by discussion. If this was sectarian it was hardly, in any useful contemporary sense, polemically Whig; it is more like the sectarianism of English respectability.{{sfn|Burrow|1983|p=}} }}

In 1982, [[Gertrude Himmelfarb]] wrote: {{blockquote|[M]ost professional historians have long since given up reading Macaulay, as they have given up writing the kind of history he wrote and thinking about history as he did. Yet there was a time when anyone with any pretension to cultivation read Macaulay.{{sfn|Himmelfarb|1986|p=163}} }} Himmelfarb also laments that "the history of the ''History'' is a sad testimonial to the cultural regression of our times".{{sfn|Himmelfarb|1986|p=165}}

In the novel ''[[Marathon Man (novel)|Marathon Man]]'' and its [[Marathon Man (film)|film adaptation]], the protagonist was named 'Thomas Babington' after Macaulay.{{sfn|Goldman|1974|p=20}}

''The Quarrel of Croker and Macaulay,'' by historian [[William Thomas (historian)|William Thomas]] ''(''published in 2000), studies the relationship between the Anglo-Irish politician and author John Wilson [[John Wilson Croker|Croker]] and Macaulay.<ref>[https://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/news/remembering-william-thomas-1936-2025 Remembering William Thomas]: 1936–2025 | Christ Church, University of Oxford. ''www.chch.ox.ac.uk''. 2025-10-02. Retrieved 2025-11-10.</ref>

In 2008, [[Walter Olson]] argued for the pre-eminence of Macaulay as a British [[classical liberal]].{{sfn|Olson|2008|pp=309–310}}

==Works==
* {{gutenberg author| id=443| name=Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay}}
* [[gutenberg:847|''Lays of Ancient Rome'']]   originally published in the year 1842.
* {{cite wikisource|title=The History of England from the Accession of James II|first=Thomas Babington |last=Macaulay|display-authors=0|location=Philadelphia|publisher=Porter & Coates|date=1848}}
** 5 vols (1848): [https://archive.org/details/historyofenglan01maca Vol 1], [https://archive.org/details/historyofenglan02maca Vol 2], [https://archive.org/details/historyenglandac03macaiala Vol 3], [https://archive.org/details/historyenglandac04macaiala Vol 4], [https://archive.org/details/englandhistory05macauoft Vol 5] at [[Internet Archive]]
** 5 vols (1848): [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1468 Vol. 1], [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2439 Vol. 2], [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2612 Vol. 3], [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2613 Vol. 4], [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2614 Vol. 5] at [[Project Gutenberg]]
** [http://librivox.org/newcatalog/search.php?title=history+england&author=macaulay&status=all&action=Search volumes 1–3] at [[LibriVox]].org
* ''Critical and Historical Essays(1843)'', 2 vols, edited by [[Alexander James Grieve]]. [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2332 Vol. 1], [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2333 Vol. 2]
* {{cite book|last=Macaulay |first=Thomas Babington Baron Macaulay|title=Critical Historical and Miscellaneous Essays with a Memoir and Index|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F6JGAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA361|volume=V. and VI|year=1873|publisher=Mason, Baker & Pratt|chapter=Social and Industrial Capacities of the Negroes|display-authors=0}}
* {{cite book|last=Macaulay |first=Thomas Babington Baron Macaulay|title=Lays of Ancient Rome: With Ivry, and The Armada|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.182206|year=1881|publisher=Longmans, Green, and Company|display-authors=0}}
* ''William Pitt, Earl of Chatham: Second Essay'' (Maynard, Merrill, & Company, 1892, 110 pages)
* ''The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay(1860)'', 4 vols [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2167 Vol. 1], [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2168 Vol. 2], [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2169 Vol. 3], [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2170 Vol. 4]
* [http://www.bartleby.com/27/24.html ''Machiavelli''] on [[Niccolò Machiavelli]] (1850).
* ''The Letters of Thomas Babington Macaulay(1881)'', 6 vols, edited by Thomas Pinney.
* ''The Journals of Thomas Babington Macaulay'', 5 vols, edited by William Thomas.
* [http://theotherpages.org/poems/poem-mn.html#macaulay Macaulay index entry at Poets' Corner]
* [http://theotherpages.org/poems/rome.html Lays of Ancient Rome (Complete) at Poets' Corner] with an introduction by Bob Blair
* {{librivox author|Thomas+Babington+Macaulay|title=Thomas Babington Macaulay}}

==Arms==
{{Infobox COA wide
|image = Arms of Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay.svg
|bannerimage =
|badgeimage =
|notes = The [[coat of arms|arms]], [[heraldic crest|crest]] and [[heraldic motto|motto]] allude to the heraldry of the [[Clan MacAulay|MacAulays of Ardincaple]]; however Thomas Babington Macaulay was not related to this [[Scottish clan|clan]] at all. He was, instead, descended from the unrelated [[Macaulays of Lewis]]. Such adoptions were not uncommon at the time according to the Scottish heraldic historian [[Peter Drummond-Murray]] but usually made from ignorance rather than deceit.
|year_adopted =
|crest = Upon a rock a boot [[Proper (heraldry)#Proper|proper]] thereon a spur [[Or (heraldry)|Or]].{{sfn|Burke|1864|p=635}}
|torse =
|helm =
|escutcheon = [[Gules]] two arrows in [[saltire]] points downward [[argent]] surmounted by as many barrulets compony Or and [[Azure (heraldry)|azure]] between two buckles [[in pale]] of the third a [[bordure]] engrailed also of the third.{{sfn|Burke|1864|p=635}}
|supporters = Two [[heron]]s proper.{{sfn|Burke|1864|p=635}}
|compartment =
|motto = ''Dulce periculum''{{sfn|Burke|1864|p=635}} (translation from [[Latin]]: "danger is sweet").
|orders =
|other_elements =
|banner =
|badge =
|symbolism =
|previous_versions =
}}

==See also==
* [[Philosophic Whigs]]
* [[Whig history]] further explains the interpretation of history that Macaulay espoused.
* [[Samuel Rogers#Middle life and friendships]]
{{portal bar|Biography|Poetry|United Kingdom}}

== Citations ==
{{reflist|30em}}

== General and cited sources ==
{{refbegin|2|indent=yes}}
* {{cite book|last=Brendon|first=Piers |author-link=Piers Brendon|title=The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eVnyQr2avocC&pg=PA126|year=2010|publisher=Random House|isbn=978-1409077961}}
* {{cite book|last=Burke|first=Bernard |title=The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales: Comprising a Registry of Armorial Bearings from the Earliest to the Present Time|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WmpmAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA635|year=1864|publisher=Harrison & sons}}
* {{cite book|last=Burrow|first=J.W. |author-link=J. W. Burrow|title=A Liberal Descent: Victorian Historians and the English Past|url=https://archive.org/details/liberaldescentvi0000burr|url-access=registration|year=1983|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0521274821}}
* {{cite book|author-link=Winston Churchill|first=Winston |last=Churchill|title=Marlborough: His Life and Times|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.124872/page/n135|date=1947|location=London|publisher=Geo. Harrap & Co.|volume=1}}
* {{cite book|title=Recollections by a sister of T.B. Macaulay |first=Margaret |last=Cropper|date= 1864}}
* {{cite journal | last1 = Evans | first1 = Stephen | year = 2002 | title = Macaulay's minute revisited: Colonial language policy in nineteenth-century India | journal = Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development | volume = 23 | issue = 4| pages = 260–281 | doi = 10.1080/01434630208666469 | s2cid = 144856725 }}
* {{cite book|last=Galton|first=Francis |author-link=Francis Galton|title=Hereditary Genius: an Inquiry Into Its Laws and Consequences|url=https://archive.org/details/hereditarygeniu01galtgoog|year=1869|publisher=Macmillan|location=London}}
* {{cite book|last=Geyl|first=Pieter |author-link=Pieter Geyl|title=Debates with Historians|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ShLTAAAAMAAJ|year=1958|publisher=Meridian }}
* {{cite book|last=Goldman|first=William |author-link=William Goldman|title=Marathon Man|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TeewAAAAIAAJ|year=1974|publisher=Dell|isbn=978-0440053279}}
* {{cite book|last=Gonçalves|first=Sérgio Campos|editor=Jurandir Malerba|title=Lições de história : o caminho da ciência no longo século XIX|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t_NV-LBgH1sC&pg=PA211|year=2010|publisher=Editora FGV|location=Rio de Janeiro|isbn=978-8574309996|chapter=Thomas Babington Macaulay}}
* {{cite book|last=Hill|first=Roland |title=Lord Acton|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KHGHygAACAAJ|year=2011|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0300181272}}
* {{cite book|author-link=Gertrude Himmelfarb|first=Gertrude |last=Himmelfarb|chapter=Who Now Reads Macaulay?|title=Marriage and Morals Among The Victorians. And other Essays|location=London|publisher= [[Faber and Faber]]|date= 1986}}
* {{cite book|first=J.P. |last=Kenyon|author-link=J. P. Kenyon|chapter=The Revolution of 1688: Resistance and Contract|editor-link=Neil McKendrick|editor-first=Neil|editor-last= McKendrick|title=Historical Perspectives. Studies in English thought and Society in Honour of J.H. Plumb|location=London|publisher= Europa |date= 1974}}
* {{cite book|editor1-last=Knight|editor1-first=Charles|title=The English Cyclopaedia : Biography; Volume IV|date=1867|publisher=Bradbury Evans & Co|location=London|page=8|chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/englishcyclopae03kniggoog#page/n9/mode/2up|chapter=Macaulay, Rt Hon Thomas Babington}}
* {{cite book|last=Kuper|first=Adam |author-link=Adam Kuper|title=Incest and Influence|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aoldc5fJeH8C|year=2009|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0674035898}}
* {{cite book|author=Lord Acton|editor1-first=John Neville|editor1-last= Figgis |editor2-first=Reginald Vere|editor2-last= Laurence|title=Historical Essays and Studies|url = https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.79915/page/n489|year=1919|publisher=Macmillan|location=London}}
* {{cite book|author=Lord Moran|author-link=Charles Wilson, 1st Baron Moran|title=Winston Churchill: the struggle for survival, 1940–1965|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EaGfAAAAMAAJ|year=1968|publisher=Sphere|location=London|isbn=978-0722162231}}
* {{cite book|last=Losurdo|first=Domenico |title=Liberalism: A Counter-history|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2blvDwAAQBAJpg|year=2014|publisher=Verso |isbn=978-1781681664}}
* {{cite book |last1=Macaulay |first1=Thomas Babington |editor1-first=A.J. |editor1-last=Grieve |title=Critical and Historical Essays. Volume 1 |url=http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/tb-macaulay/critical-historical-essays-1.pdf |year=1941 |orig-year=1907 |publisher=J.M. Dent |location=London |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130704083005/http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/tb-macaulay/critical-historical-essays-1.pdf |archive-date=2013-07-04 |url-status=dead }}
* {{cite book|last=Marx|first=Karl Heinrich |author-link=Karl Marx|editor=Friedrich Engels|title=Capital: A Critique of Political Economy|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.48582/page/n791|year=1906|publisher=Modern Library|location=New York}}
* {{cite encyclopedia |last= Olson|first= Walter |author-link= Walter Olson|editor-first=Ronald |editor-last=Hamowy |editor-link=Ronald Hamowy |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism |chapter=Macaulay, Thomas Babington (1800–1859) |chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC&pg=PT347  |year=2008 |publisher= [[SAGE Publishing|Sage]]; [[Cato Institute]] |location= Thousand Oaks, CA |doi=10.4135/9781412965811.n185 |isbn= 978-1412965804 |oclc=750831024| lccn = 2008009151 }}
* {{cite book|editor-first=Herbert |editor-last=Paul |title=Letters of Lord Acton to Mary Gladstone|publisher=George Allen|date= 1904|url=https://archive.org/details/a54707200actouoft/page/1|location=London}}
* {{cite book|author-link=George Richard Potter|first=G.R. |last=Potter|title=Macaulay|location=London|publisher= Longmans, Green & Co.|date= 1959}}
* {{cite journal|last1=Rupprecht|first1=Anita|date=September 2012|title='When he gets among his countrymen, they tell him that he is free': Slave Trade Abolition, Indentured Africans and a Royal Commission|journal=Slavery & Abolition|volume=33 |issue=3 |pages= 435–455|doi= 10.1080/0144039X.2012.668300|s2cid=144301729}}
* {{cite journal | last1 = Spear | first1 = Percival | author-link = Percival Spear|year = 1938 | title = Bentinck and Education | jstor = 3020849 | journal = Cambridge Historical Journal | volume = 6 | issue = 1| pages = 78–101 | doi = 10.1017/S1474691300003814 }}
* {{cite book|author-link=W. A. Speck|first=W.A. |last=Speck|chapter=Thomas Babington Macaulay|editor-first= John|editor-last= Cannon|title=The Historian at Work|location=London|publisher= George Allen & Unwin|date= 1980}}
* {{cite book|last=Sullivan|first=Robert E |title=Macaulay: The Tragedy of Power|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hVVEtXHNup4C&pg=PA21|year=2010|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0674054691}}
* {{cite book|editor-last1=Watt|editor-first1=Carey Anthony |editor-last2=Mann|editor-first2=Michael |title=Civilizing Missions in Colonial and Postcolonial South Asia: From Improvement to Development|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l4vROwLbHXMC&pg=PA23|year=2011|publisher=Anthem Press|isbn=978-1843318644}}
* {{cite book|last=Western|first=John R. |title=Monarchy and revolution|url=https://archive.org/details/monarchyrevoluti0000west|url-access=registration|year=1972|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0874710663 }}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin}}
* [[Bryant, Arthur]] (1932). ''Macaulay'' (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1979). {{ISBN|0297775502}} [Facsimile reprint of London, P. Davies], old, popular biography.
* Clive, John Leonard (1973). ''Thomas Babington Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian'' London: Secker and Warburg. {{ISBN|043610220X}}.
* Cruikshank, Margaret (1978). ''Thomas Babington Macaulay''. Boston: Twayne. {{ISBN|0805766863}}.
* Edwards, Owen Dudley (1988). ''Macaulay''. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
* {{cite journal |last1=Hall |first1=Catherine |year=2009 |title=Macaulay's Nation |journal=Victorian Studies |volume=51 |issue=3 |pages=505–523 |doi=10.2979/vic.2009.51.3.505 |s2cid=145678995}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Harrington |first1=Jack |year=2010 |title=Sir John Malcolm and the Creation of British India, Ch. 6 |publisher=New York: [[Palgrave Macmillan]] |isbn=978-0230108851}}
* Howard, Michael. "Historians Reconsidered : II Macaulay." ''History Today'' (May 1951) 1#5 pp.&nbsp;56–61 online.
* Jann, Rosemary ''The Art and Science of Victorian History'' (1985) [https://ohiostatepress.org/books/Complete%20PDFs/Jann%20Art/05.pdf online free]
* Masani, Zareer (2013). ''Macaulay: Britain's Liberal Imperialist''. London: [[Bodley Head]].
* {{cite book |last=Trevelyan |first=Sir George Otto |author-link=George Otto Trevelyan |title=The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rmEpAAAAYAAJ |volume=1 |year=1909 |publisher=Harper and Brothers}}
* {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron|volume=17|pages=193–196|first=Mark|last=Pattison|author-link=Mark Pattison (academic)}}
* Speck, W.A., "Robert Southey, Lord Macaulay and the Standard of Living Controversy", ''History'' 86 (2001) 467–477 {{doi|10.1111/1468-229x.00201}}
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{wikiquote|Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay}}
{{wikisource|works=or}}
{{commons category|Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay}}
* {{npg name}}
* [http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/index.html Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)], Fran Pritchett, [[Columbia University]]
* {{Hansard-contribs | mr-thomas-macaulay | Thomas Babington Macaulay }}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=443| name=Thomas Babington Macaulay}}
* {{Internet Archive author |search=("Macaulay, Thomas Babington" OR "Thomas Babington Macaulay" OR "Lord Macaulay") |dname=Thomas Babington Macaulay}}
* {{Librivox author |id=802 |title=Thomas Babington Macaulay}}
* [http://www.readanybook.com/author/macaulay-thomas-babington-macaulay-baron-365 books by Macauly at Readanybook.com]
* [http://www.jamesboswell.info/content/lord-macauleys-habit-exaggeration Lord Macaulay's Habit of Exaggeration], JamesBoswell.info
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070206005427/http://www.hindu.com/mag/2007/02/04/stories/2007020400030300.htm Macaulay's Minute revisited], Ramachandra Guha, ''[[The Hindu]]'', 4 February 2007
* {{Find a Grave|20900}} – burial at Westminster Abbey, London
* {{Find a Grave|21847}} – memorial statue, antechapel, Trinity College, Cambridge

{{s-start}}
{{s-par|uk}}
{{s-bef | before = [[James Abercromby, 1st Baron Dunfermline|Hon. James Abercromby]]<br />[[Sir James Macdonald, 2nd Baronet|Sir James Macdonald, Bt]] }}
{{s-ttl
 | title = [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] for [[Calne (UK Parliament constituency)|Calne]]
 | years = 1830–[[1832 United Kingdom general election|1832]]
 | with  = [[Sir James Macdonald, 2nd Baronet|Sir James Macdonald, Bt]] to 1831
 | with2 = [[Charles Richard Fox]] 1831–1832
}}
{{s-aft | after = [[William Thomas Fitzmaurice, Earl of Kerry|The Earl of Kerry]] }}
{{s-new | constituency}}
{{s-ttl
 | title = [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] for [[Leeds (UK Parliament constituency)|Leeds]]
 | years = [[1832 United Kingdom general election|1832]]–[[1834 Leeds by-election|1834]]
 | with  = [[John Marshall (1797–1836)|John Marshall]]
}}
{{s-aft | after = [[John Marshall (1797–1836)|John Marshall]]<br />[[Edward Baines (1774–1848)|Edward Baines]] }}
{{succession box
 | title  = [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] for [[Edinburgh (UK Parliament constituency)|Edinburgh]]
 | years  = [[1839 Edinburgh by-election|1839]]–[[1847 United Kingdom general election|1847]]
 | with   = [[John Campbell, 1st Baron Campbell|Sir John Campbell]] to 1841
 | with2  = [[William Gibson-Craig]] from 1841
 | before = [[John Campbell, 1st Baron Campbell|Sir John Campbell]]<br />[[James Abercromby, 1st Baron Dunfermline|Hon. James Abercromby]]
 | after  = [[Charles Cowan]]<br />[[William Gibson-Craig]]
}}
{{succession box
 | title  = [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] for [[Edinburgh (UK Parliament constituency)|Edinburgh]]
 | years  = [[1852 United Kingdom general election|1852]]–[[1856 Edinburgh by-election|1856]]
 | with   = [[Charles Cowan]]
 | before = [[Charles Cowan]]<br />[[William Gibson-Craig]]
 | after  = [[Charles Cowan]]<br />[[Adam Black]]
}}
{{s-off}}
{{succession box  | title  = [[Secretary to the Board of Control]]  | years  = 1832–1833 | before = [[Thomas Hyde Villiers]]  | after  = [[Robert Gordon (MP)|Robert Gordon]]}}
{{succession box|title=[[Secretary at War]]|before=[[Henry Grey, 3rd Earl Grey|Viscount Howick]]|after=[[Sir Henry Hardinge]]|years=1839–1841}}
{{succession box | title=[[Paymaster General]] | before=[[Bingham Baring, 2nd Baron Ashburton|Hon. Bingham Baring]] | after=[[Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville|The Earl Granville]] | years=1846–1848}}
{{s-aca}}
{{succession box|title=[[Rector of the University of Glasgow]]|years=1848–1850|before=[[William Mure (scholar)|William Mure]]|after=[[Sir Archibald Alison, 1st Baronet|Sir Archibald Alison, Bt]]}}
{{s-reg|uk}}
{{s-new | creation}}
{{s-ttl | title=[[Baron Macaulay]] | years=1857–1859}}
{{s-non | reason=Extinct }}
{{s-end}}
{{Paymaster General}}
{{Historians of Europe}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Macaulay, Thomas Babington}}
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