Bagehot: The Life and Times of the Greatest Victorian

by James Grant

The definitive biography of one of the most brilliant and influential financial minds―banker, essayist, and editor of the Economist . During the upheavals of 2007–09, the chairman of the Federal Reserve had the name of a Victorian icon on the tip of his Walter Bagehot. Banker, man of letters, inventor of the Treasury bill, and author of Lombard Street , the still-canonical guide to stopping a run on the banks, Bagehot prescribed the doctrines that―decades later―inspired the radical responses to the world’s worst financial crises. Born in the small market town of Langport, just after the Panic of 1825 swept across England, Bagehot followed in his father’s footsteps and took a position at the local family bank―but his influence on financial matters would soon spread far beyond the county of Somerset. Persuasive and precocious, he came to hold sway in political circles, making high-profile friends, including William Gladstone―and enemies, such as Lord Overstone and Benjamin Disraeli. As a prolific essayist on wide-ranging topics, Bagehot won the admiration of Matthew Arnold and Woodrow Wilson, and delighted in paradox. He was also a misogynist, and while he opposed slavery, he misjudged Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. As editor of the Economist , he offered astute commentary on the financial issues of his day, and his name lives on in an eponymous weekly column. He has been called "the Greatest Victorian." In James Grant’s colorful and groundbreaking biography, Bagehot appears as both an ornament to his own age and a muse to our own. Drawing on a wealth of historical documents, correspondence, and publications, Grant paints a vivid portrait of the banker and his world.

Genres: Biography, History, Economics, Business, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, Finance

368 pages, Hardcover

First published July 23, 2019

About the author

There is more than one author by this name on Goodreads.

James Grant, financial journalist and historian, is the founder and editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, a twice-monthly journal of the investment markets. His book, The Forgotten Depression, 1921: the Crash that Cured Itself, a history of America’s last governmentally unmedicated business-cycle downturn, won the 2015 Hayek Prize of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.

Among his other books on finance and financial history are Bernard M. Baruch: The Adventures of a Wall Street Legend (Simon & Schuster, 1983), Money of the Mind (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1992), Minding Mr. Market (Farrar, Straus, 1993), The Trouble with Prosperity (Times Books, 1996), and Mr. Market Miscalculates (Axios Press, 2008).

Reviews

[Nooilforpacifists · Rating 4 out of 5]

This bio is meant for two sorts: those interested in Victorian banking and those interested in founding of The Economist magazine. Bagehot, of course, is the first and the son-in-law and greatest editor of the second. So that’s a small audience.

Yet it should be larger. Bagehot was both a magnificent writer and wrote with the motto of the U.S. OCS school in mind: “sometimes wrong, but never in doubt.” Bagehot, more than anyone, was responsible for the doctrine that the state should intervene and be sure any Bank was “too big to fail.” (It is perhaps no coincidence that, during his career as one of England’s first “public intellectuals”—he never was an MP—that Bagehot rose to Vice President of the family Bank.). Other contemporaries disagreed; Bagehot just out-gunned them on the printed page. So much so that as a political liberal and Gladstone supporter, he was called on, quietly, to advise Tory Exchequers (Disraeli and Bagehot had a mutual loathing for each other).

Little here will give any idea of the man as anything other than a businessman. That may be because it’s possible he wasn’t much more. But that takes nothing from this well written biography. See my notes for more.

[Marks54 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a new biography of Walter Bagehot, the person who as a writer, journalist, and editor was critical in getting The Economist established as one of the top business/finance/current events publications in the world during the early to mid-Victorian era in 19th century Britain. He is perhaps most famous for his book on the British financial markets under the gold standard - Lombard Street, although he wrote hundreds of essays and reviews that are available in different collections. The Economist still maintains a weekly column named after him to this day. Bagehot provided that strongest articulation of how financial markets can work under the classical gold standard, including how and why market adjustments and re-equilibration. He was witness to numerous booms and busts in the mid-19th century and his advice was valued by the key players in British politics. He was not just a journalist, however, but a successful bankers who knew the banking business in detail.

One would think that Bagehot’s world is obsolete. We are off the gold standard - or even a fixed exchange standard - and have been for a while. The British Empire is gone and the Big Bang that allowed London to continue its world financial dominance is being undone by Brexit. Still, Bagehot’s writings on banks, crashes, lending and bonds, and the role of the Central Bank as the “lender of last resort” continue to be influential today and his name was heard frequently in connection with the financial crises after 2007-2008 and the Great Recession that followed it. Bagehot remains the prophet of personal financial responsibility, although his critics raised warnings about moral hazard and “too big to fail”. Some things change. Some things remain.

Grant’s biography tells the story of Bagehot’s life (relatively uneventful, including some failed efforts at running for Parliament). He also quotes liberally from his writings. This is not overdone, especially that Bagehot was such a fine writer.

The book requires some historical context but is well written and very interesting.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I suspect that this biography will interest few readers in spite of its quality, but when I learned of James Grant's biography Bagehot: The Life and Times of the Greatest Victorian (2019) I was an early adopter—who was this man? What were his many contributions? Why do even today's central bankers talk of him in tones of deep respect? What did James Grant, creator of Grant's Interest Rate Observer and a respected financial writer, think of the mysterious Mr. Bagehot?

Walter Bagehot ("Badge-It") was perhaps the most influential nineteenth century thinker on matters British: politics and finance being his strongest suits. He became a financial journalist and the editor of the premier financial magazine, The Economist. His book Lombard Street (1873) was the definitive description of British finance and is still read for its eloquent insights into financial matters and central banking. James Grant is also an astute and eloquent financial writer, an it is natural that he would be attracted to his nineteenth century doppelgänger.

But this is a different kind of biography. Rather than focusing on Bagehot's life, it's real interest in his Bagehot's times, particularly in the interplay between banking the gold standard, banking panics, and banking legislation. It's a worthy read, if only because it tells us so much about what would occur (reoccur?) in the twentieth century.

In 1915 the eminent John Maynard Keynes described Bagehot's writing as "pamphleteering." This is nor overly harsh. Bagehot was not a theorist or innovator. He was an observer and a reporter. But such people do have influence.

Banking< Panics and Gold in the 19th Century

The main activity of banks in England in the 19th century was to "discount the notes" of businesses. For example, an exporter of a steam engine might have a "note" stating that the buyer in a foreign country will pay the stated amount on a stated date in a stated place. The exporter can't carry the note on his own books—that would require the exporter to wait for payment until the note is due, and makers of steam engines didn't have the wherewithal to advance money to customers. So the exporter sells the note to a bank at a discounted price (say a 4% discount from the face value). If the note is paid, the bank makes a 4% return on the loan; if it isn't paid on time there are legal steps to follow in recovering its face value.

The Bank of England was formed in 1694 as a joint stock bank, the only one allowed by law in England and Wales. This meant that it could obtain capital by issuing new shares and could have any number of shareholders, though shareholders did not have the limited liability now associated with most large businesses—in the event that the Bank failed, they were "jointly and severally liable" for its debts, meaning that that they must, as a group, pay all the Bank's liabilities; if any shareholders did not carry their burden, the other shareholders must pick it up. The Bank was not a government bank, just as the the Bank of the United States that failed in New York in 1930 was not a government-sponsored bank in spite of its name. However, it did have a unique relationship with the government as its fiscal agent, responsible for managing government debt issuance and repayment as well as receiving government deposits and paying interest of its debt.

All other banks in England were "private banks" with no more than six owners, again with joint and several liability. These private banks were single-site entities—operating without branches. This private banking system might have been designed for instability—in the event that a bank's loans defaulted and its capital disappeared, it had no source of capital except the six owners, who might already be strapped by the economic conditions that had led the bank to fail.

A narrowly capitalized and fragile banking structure was one of the sources of the Panic of 1825, on which Bagehot cut his financial teeth even though it happened the year before his birth. In 1797 Britain had "suspended convertibility," meaning that it had abandoned the gold standard and would no longer buy or sell gold at the fixed price of £3.17s.10½d per ounce. The stimulus for the Panic was Britain's 1821 return to the gold standard under Sir Robert Peel's prime ministry.

The problem was that while Britain had experienced considerable inflation during the Wars, she returned to the gold standard at the too-low pre-1797 gold price. Smart people—domestic and even foreign—could get gold from the Exchequer and sell it for more in the open market. The results were a drain on Britain's monetary gold supply, a forced decrease in the money supply, higher interest rates and a threat to the convertibility of the pound sterling.

One hundred years later the gold standard would bite again when in 1925 Winston Churchill, Chancellor of the Exchequer, repeated the mistake by readopting the gold standard at the 1914 gold price, thus demonstrating that you can always tell a Brit, but you can't tell him much.

When a currency is overvalued, as was the pound sterling in 1821, a nation has only two choices to restore balance: it can devalue by raising the gold price to equal the world price, or it can deflate by creating a decline in domestic prices until the price of gold equals the world price. The deeply-entrenched political philosophy of the time considered devaluation an anathema—a sign of weakness in the underpinning of the British financial system. But the second choice means accepting a period of economic recession and price deflation until the currency becomes properly valued at the pre-existing gold price. By returning to gold at its pre-1797 price, the Peel government chose deflation. The result was economic recession with consequent bank failures as runs on banks began.

Thus, the Panic of 1825 was a self-inflicted disaster, as was the Churchill blunder a century later—an even greater blunder because the 1825 had apparently left no lessons for the future. However, the Panic did reveal some problems with Bank of England policies and British banking law. One example was British usury law: for 100 years the maximum interest rate allowed British usury law had been 4%. But the high inflation rate during the Wars meant a low real interest rate—borrowers could get money on terms that left them better off, and lenders worse off, when the loan was due: you were effectively paid interest to take out a loan. The usury limit encouraged borrowing and spending, adding fuel to the wartime boom; it also encouraged an outflow of gold as international investors found better places to lend.

Parliament reacted by raising the usury limit to 5% to reduce gold outflows. A more significant response was the Banking Act of 1826. Changes in banking law removed the Bank of England's monopoly on joint stock banking by allowing formation of joint stock banks outside of the London area; the Bank of England remained the only joint stock bank within a 65-mile radius of London. The six-owner limit on private banks was also eliminated, broadening the capital base for private banks . The effect was to increase the access to capital by British banks: you could form either a joint stock bank or a private bank, each with an unlimited number of owners. This spread the risks of banking more broadly and reduced the chance of bank failure. In either case, the owners' liability remained joint and several.

The Bank Charter Act of 1844

The most prevalent monetary problem of the 19th century was maintaining an acceptable ratio of bank notes to fold supply. Under the gold standard that that lasted from 1821until 1931, an excessive amount of bank notes ("money") created inflation, the nation lost gold to other countries, a threat to convertibility emerged, and bank customers flocked to the banks to convert notes into gold. To avoid the risk of "runs" on banks the Bank of England was forced to raise the Bank Rate to discourage gold losses and declines in the money supply, but at the expense of economic activity, employment, and business.

Both private and joint stock banks had the right to issue "bank notes" that were convertible into gold. There were no legal requirements about how much gold a bank had to hold against the value of its outstanding notes. This, of course, allowed the less reputable banks to hold little gold but make loans and issue notes in high volume. Banks with particularly high note-to-gold ratios had greater chance of having notes become inconvertible during financial panic, and as they failed panic would spread to other banks. This was one of the matters addressed in Robert Peel's 1844 Bank Charter Act.

The 1844 Act had two significant parts. The first was in the Bank of England's organization chart: the Bank was split into two parts: the Issue Department was responsible for issuing new notes when gold was paid in and for retiring old notes when gold was paid out; this was the Bank's monetary function. The Banking Department was responsible for making loans to customers and monitoring those loans; this was the Bank's lending function. The separation of the two functions would, it was thought, limit the chances for the Bank's business interests to influence its money creation.

The second part of the Act was aimed at eliminating the note issuance by private banks and giving the Bank of England a monopoly on issuance notes. Under the Act, existing banks continued to have the right of note issue until they were absorbed by another bank; at that time they would lose that right. New banks could not issue notes. Thus, the notes issued by private banks would eventually disappear, leaving the note issuance under the sole control of the Bank of England.

As private bank notes declined, bank deposits increased. Obviously, once private notes had decreased the only source of funds for private banks would be deposits. Parliament recognized this, and a significant part of the debate over the Act centered on just what this meant. Would the Act simply replace private bank notes with private bank deposits, as the Banking School believed? Or bank notes the fundamental source of spending that needed to be controlled, as the (victorious) Currency School believed? Would the Ac of 1944 really limit the "money supply"? What was the money supply?

These questions have never been fully resolved. We still have a murky notion of what defines "money." The reason it matters is that "money" is viewed as "whatever it is that is closely related to spending." Today, as in 1844, we all believe that currency and coin is a component of And today we happily add bank demand deposits ("checking accounts") at commercial banks, creating a definition of money called "M1". Milton Friedman broadened the definition to "M2" when he added time and saving deposits at commercial banks. And we can get to M3 by including checking accounts at brokerage companies, mutual funds, and so on. But whatever yo define as "money," the debate about that definition began in 1844.

Of course, none of the bank reforms prevented financial panics. There were panics in 1837 and 1844 after the 1826 Act, and in 1847, 1857, and 1866 following the 1844 Act. But perhaps the Acts of 1825 and 1844 reduced the frequency and severity.

Bagehot's Life

Bagehot was born in 1826, the son of Edith Stuckey Bagehot and Thomas Watson Bagehot, called "Watson." Watson was a banker at Stuckey's Bank, one of the country's respected private banks at which the principal officer was Bagehot's uncle, Vincent Stuckey. In addition to his job at the bank, Watson Bagehot operated several businesses including a salt mining business and a business operating freight barges. The Bagehot's were well off by any standards except the Stuckey's.

Bagehot was a brilliant and introspective child. His life's spark was in his mind: he loved to mearn new things and the write about them. Bagehot was a polymath, interested in learning everything—and in writing about it. It's no surprise that he became Britain's most acclaimed financial writer. He excelled in all subjects with philosophy, mathematics, and history at the top of his list. Though brilliant, Bagehot was barred from Britain's top universities because his family was Unitarian: only Anglicans b]need apply at Oxford and Cambridge.

He matriculated at University College, London, a school that invited students from a broad spectrum of society. Its professors were missionaries devoted to the spread of learning; it worked will for Bagehot and after receiving his B.A. he made a fleeting stab at becoming a lawyer by getting an M. A. But dullness was not one of Bagehot's ambitions, and after receiving an M.A. Bagehot was off to the Continent. He was a twenty-two year old in Paris in 1848 when the European communist revolutions broke out—this was the year of Marx's Communist Manifesto and the proletariat was far from happy.

Bagehot watched as Louis-Napoleon, Napoleon's nephew and France's president, consolidated his power and slid toward dictatorship. Bagehot was a political conservative sympathetic with Louis-Napoleon. In 1852 he published seven controversial essays totaling 60,000 words in The Inquirer, a Unitarian newspaper. That paper's readers generally allied themselves with democracy and against Louis-Napoleon; Bagehot's view that business interests trumped democracy might have received a more supportive audience had he expressed them in James Wilson's The Economist—the paper that he would later edit.

In 1853, with his father's support and the directors' approval, Bagehot became an employee of Stuckey's Bank. It was a well-timed change: gold strikes in America and Australia inflated both the money supply and bank lending, ending a period of ever-declining prices of British goods. Railroads, the telegraph, and other new technologies were creating excellent investment opportunities. It was a time of economic confidence and Bagehot was well-placed to observe it. But his early training in accountancy revealed a strange lacuna: he had mastered calculus, both differential and integral, but he found it difficult to make sums of columns add up.

In 1857 the 31-year old Bagehot visited the home of James Wilson. The outcome of that discussion would determine whether Bagehot became a regular contributor to The Economist. He did, and he received even more from the meeting when he met Eliza Wilson, eldest of Wilson's six daughters, who, at age 25, became his wife the next year. As we know, Bagehot would become the editor-in-chief of Wilson's financial paper. He had arrived at the job that suited him well: always learning and always writing. And he ghad arrived at a stable social life.

Following his father-in-law's death in 1860 Bagehot became editor of The Economist. He and Eliza had a reportedly happy but childless life until his death in 1877 at age 51. Eliza, always frail, lived until 1921, dying at 87.

Lombard Street

Bagehot's best-known and most-cited book was Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market (1873). Named after the location of Overend & Gurney, a wholesale bank whose failure prompted the Panic of 1866, Bagehot used the 1866 Panic as a template for British financial crises, provided a wiring diagram for the British financial system, and assessed the role that should be played by the Bank of England, called "the Old Lady of Lombard Street."

The analysis and prescriptions in Lombard Street were not Bagehot's alone. They had also been expressed in Henry Thornton's An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain (1802) and they had been acted upon during the Panic of 1825. But Bagehot's book spread the news.

A thumbnail summary of the book is Bagehot's Dictum defining how a central bank should behave in a financial crisis:

Central banks should lend early and without limit to solvent firms against good collateral and at high rates.There should be only two rules.

First. That these loans should only be made at a very high rate of interest. This will operate as a heavy fine on unreasonable timidity, and will prevent the greatest number of applications by persons who do not require it. The rate should be raised early in the panic, so that the fine may be paid early; that no one may borrow out of idle precaution without paying well for it; that the Banking reserve may be protected as far as possible.

Secondly. That at this rate these advances should be made on all good banking securities, and as largely as the public ask for them. The reason is plain. The object is to stay alarm, and nothing therefore should be done to cause alarm. But the way to cause alarm is to refuse some one who has good security to offer... No advances indeed need be made by which the Bank will ultimately lose. The amount of bad business in commercial countries is an infinitesimally small fraction of the whole business... The great majority, the majority to be protected, are the 'sound' people, the people who have good security to offer. If it is known that the Bank of England is freely advancing on what in ordinary times is reckoned a good security—on what is then commonly pledged and easily convertible—the alarm of the solvent merchants and bankers will be stayed. But if securities, really good and usually convertible, are refused by the Bank, the alarm will not abate, the other loans made will fail in obtaining their end, and the panic will become worse and worse.

[Capt. Spaulding · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Grant is more than a highly respected writer and commentator on financial markets. He’s also an accomplished biographer, having published books on John Adams and Thomas B. Reed, who twice was Speaker of the House at the close of the 19th century. Grant’s “Bagehot” combines his skill in both fields in a way that is as polished as it is informative and thought-provoking.

“Bagehot” tells two stories, both with the kind of detailed research, sharp analysis, insightful observations, clever asides, tangential references, verbal darts, and interesting allusions that will make admirers of Grant’s style smile and detractors…well, continue detracting.

The first story is a straightforward, well-paced biography of Bagehot, the great financial writer and editor of The Economist who also was a successful banker, man of letters, political writer, and long-time adviser to the highest members of mid-and-late 19th century British governments, both Tory and Liberal.

The second tale, which Grant skillfully weaves throughout his discussion of Bagehot’s financial writing, is a pointed but balanced excursion into a key topic in the history of monetary policy: responsibility. Specifically, Grant examines in detail the 19th-century roots of what we now call moral hazard. When financial bubbles burst, who should bear the risks associated with the business of extending credit – the private or corporate issuers themselves, or the Bank of England as lender of last resort? What might be the unintended consequences for the financial system if a central bank were to back-stop credit?

Bagehot played a key role in that debate from his perch at The Economist. He sided with the lender-of-last-resort view, and condensed it into the famous maxim that, in a panic, a central bank should lend freely at high interest rates against high-quality collateral. (At least, that was his original phrasing; the words “high” and “quality have quietly has been forgotten over the years). Bagehot put his views between hard covers in his book “Lombard Street,” and, for better or worse, they have reverberated down the years. Indeed, Ben Bernanke has written that he kept “Lombard Street” by his side during the great credit crisis.

On the opposite side of the lender-of-last-resort debate was the now-forgotten Thomson Hankey. He was as an insightful thinker about finance and a formidable opponent, but he was a dry-as-dust writer, which helped Bagehot – a sparkling stylist – carry the day. Grant quotes Hankey extensively, and, good editor that he is, often comes to his aid with a clarifying re-write. One example: “A good banker had no need of a central bank and a bad banker had no claim on a central bank.” Another: “…the mere existence of the doctrine of the lender of last resort was an incitement to financial recklessness.” And, tellingly, Grant observes that Hankey, not Bagehot, “grasped...the modern corollary that very large financial institutions should be treated as quasi-public property.”

Grant’s “Bagehot” isn’t exactly beach reading, but summer’s over. Anyone who enjoys excellent writing and values insightful thinking ought to set aside some time for this book.

[Trey Shipp · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you enjoy economic history and thinking about banking, credit, and the role of government during financial crises, then this book is for you.

A few interesting points:

Bagehot is a piece of work. In the depths of first love, he writes a note to the women he will later marry. And what does he tell her? His views on lending and credit conditions, of course.

Bagehot thought so deeply that William Gladstone and other leading politicians and intellectuals of the day frequently sought his views.

This book is not a straight narrative of Bagehot’s life. Grant devotes a good number of pages to describe points of political philosophy to explain the political debates Bagehot was engaged in during the period.

Grant also covers Bagehot’s views on literature, writing, and finance. Coming from the financial side, I was not aware that this banker and journalist and politician had also written highly respected literary criticism on Milton and other poets.

While other books cover the same financial and political events during Bagehot’s lifetime, this book puts you in the moment because you work through the events as Bagehot encountered and responded to them. The debates on the role of central banks and concerns about moral hazard feel intense because they rhyme so strongly with recent history. Despite Bagehot’s prodigious arguments, the debate goes on.

[Chris Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Grant has created a magnificent piece of work about an outstanding Victorian. Walter Bagehot (pronounced Bag-It) was a brilliant man who was able to bring his genius to bear on the English economic system. He grew up in a family of bankers, became one, but he was also a writer and thinker who was able to use those talents because he had the leisure to do so, thanks to his hard and inspired work in his younger years. He wrote clearly and constantly on a variety of economic targets. But enough about the subject, let's talk about Grant. His research is impeccable, his writing style allows him to talk about economics, bubbles, various schemes, major players and the home life of Bagehot, in a way that reads much better and more quickly than a novel. It is interesting and informative, and one can see why Bagehot is honored in The Economist magazine (that he did so much to make a major player as its editor) with a column title. Excellent!

[Mich · Rating 3 out of 5]

Grant’s biography of James Bagehot is essentially an economic history of England spanning Bagehot’s life from 1826-1877. He was a brilliant banker at Stuckey’s, one of the most preeminent banks, and editor of the Economist which was founded by his father-in-law James Wilson. The coverage is exhaustive and exhausting, leading this reader to skim parts of the book. It doesn’t help to have Grant’s turgid and needlessly complex phrasing, such as “Reasons not to reach too far ordinarily appear more persuasive than the case for untried action.” (P.48)

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bare 3 stars. On my quarter-star system, I'd put it at 2.75, just to indicate that it's below the midpoint. Maybe even 2.5. Make it 2.25 and the stars drop to 2

I didn't come here because Bagehot's mentioned on The Crown. I came here because Woodrow Wilson wrote "Congressional Government" as a riff on Bagehot's "The English Constitution." (Wilson got his idea for Cabinet members coming from the Senate [which he never actually tried] from this; Bagehot would have said they should come from the House if you're going to do that, I think.)

Anyway, Wilson gets one very brief mention near the end of the book. And "The English Constitution" doesn't get much more. Yes, I know Grant is a finance guy, but "The English Constitution" was looked to in his own time, at least, from what I know, as much as all his financial writing before "Lombard Street." And, Grant's an American; you'd think he'd tie that in more.

Add in that Grant engages in "presentism" in dismissing Bagehot's casual racism (and it's pretty bad), and engages in presentism in a lesser degree on other issues in Bagehot's personality, and the book drops more.

We do get the benefit of glimpses of Bagehot's writing style, as well as Grant telling us that Bagehot was NOT the first British financial analyst to propose a central bank as the lender of last resort.

With that, it seems Bagehot is kind of overrated. Keynes, it appears, thought him semi-laughable.

But, Grant as a finance guy and not a historian, won't make historical judgment calls like that, it seems.

He also, per what I've read, makes an error of note in the book. He claims the Panic of 1857 originated in the US. I read decades ago that it originated in Europe. My understanding is it started from recession in Britain and France after the end of the Crimean War.

As I said about Grant's bio of Speaker "Czar" Reed, also 2-starred, the subject of the biography deserves a better, less didactic author.

[Al · Rating 3 out of 5]

Walter Bagehot, subtitled here as the "greatest Victorian", is a man whose name has cropped up from time to time, often with positive references, in my various readings, but I've never been able to form a clear picture of who he really was and what he did. So when noted present-day financial guru James Grant published this biography, it seemed like a good opportunity to cure this deficiency in my education. It turns out that Bagehot was a streakily brilliant journalist, publisher and economist of the mid to late 1800s. He was also a frustrated politician, inconsistent in his views, and an unrepentant elitist. There's no doubt that Bagehot was charismatic, prolific and a confidant to every important English politician of the era, but my takeaway is that he was an individual who was so prolific and self-contradictory in his writings that he was bound to have said something wise and witty about almost any issue of the day. In this book, therefore, I was less impressed with Grant's presentation of Bagehot the man than with his clear descriptions of England's major financial ups and downs, and some of the other major players of the Victorian era.

[Kidlitter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A ginormous read but well worth it for anyone who has the slightest interest not just in the Victorian period and the ways one man could shape its thinking through an eerie grasp of economics, mercantilism, trade and the English character, but also in the unholy mess that Britain finds itself today. Walter Bagehot was a successful banker, a world class journalist, a genteel racist and imperialist as only Victorians could be, and a failed Parliamentarian. He was also a genius at persuading those in power what to do, though doomed not to lead himself, except by exerting an influence that still resounds today. This tome is filled with all sorts of fascinating details about how the British economy grew...and grew...and grew some more, not least because Bagehot was often writing screeds and books that cast their nets very far. Those who read the weekly eponymous column in The Economist and has wondered just who Bagehot was will find this book fascinating.

[Liam · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In investment language, 'bull market' means rising prices, 'bear market,' falling ones. The terms are thought to allude to the ways that the two animals attack: bulls with an upsweep of their horns, bears with a downward swipe of their paws." (27)

"'It is no explanation of the universal regret, that he [Francis Horner] was a considerable political economist: no real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist: he is much more likely to be sorry for his life.'" (quoting Bagehot, 63)

"Because Bagehot's words are so easily quoted, they are often misquoted. His prescription that, in a panic, a central bank should lend freely at a high rate of interest against good collateral has virtually become, following 2007, 'Lend freely at low rates of interest while materializing immense sums of fiat money with which to raise the prices of financial assets in order to stimulate spending by people who own the assets.'" (293)

[William T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything that James Grant writes is worth reading, and we should not be surprised that this new book is no exception. I give it only four stars, which is probably unfair, because the subject itself is not entirely focused. Is this a book about Bagehot or about 19th century banking? Both are worthy subjects, and perhaps inseparable, but never the less, one has to qualify one's enthusiasm by the simple statement that, if you are not interested in the history of money and banking, don't read this biography.

For myself, I certainly knew what I was getting into and I am not disappointed. The writing is lucid and the subject matter important in this day and age, even this week, of Central Bank decisions and intervention in the political economy.

Thank you Jim Grant.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some very good reviews here in the 4 star category - I won’t repeat them. My interest was in experiencing British banking in the Victorian Era, and Jim Grant always delivers. His books are well researched and he gives readers all his primary sources. Grant’s book The Forgotten Depression is fantastic.

This book will give you a snapshot of the political and banking worlds when Great Britain was at its peak of power. If you’re familiar with arguments around macroeconomics and the gold standard there’s much of interest here. If you’re new to it all, you might struggle to finish the book.

[E · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent look at the "greatest Victorian." Most Americans had never heard of the guy prior to season 1 of "The Crown." There he is known for his constitutional writings, though this book focuses on his economic work. It is a "sporadic biography," I'd say--not exactly full coverage of the man's life but more episodic, bouncing around from decade to decade in order to see what Bagehot had to say on the various crises and events of Victorian finance. But for a brief introduction to his economic views and style of writing, it was worthwhile.

[Kyle Macleod · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been struggling to enjoy casual reading over the last month or two, due to the reading requirements of my new job, however I’m glad to have eventually finished this book. This provided some very enjoyable insight into the economic debates of the second half of the 19th century, as well as other topics of interest such as the numerous financial panics and bank failures occurring at this time. Hoping to get back into better reading habits.

[Robert Sparrenberger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Walter, you deserved better. Most of this book was mind numbing in the level of detail concerning financial and banking markets. That is to be expected because it’s written by a finance guy but I didn’t feel like the subject was in half of the book. He drifts in and out as the author discusses Victorian England.

Not sure he was the greatest Victorian. Seems a bit much.

[Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always helps towards a good read when you like both the author and the subject. Not disappointed. Both the author and the book made the mark.

Not sure whether other readers would be as sympataco as me ......but if so welcome to the fellowship.

[Jiliac · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting books for it tells the history of early banking institution/organizations and the political environment of the Victorian era. Funny Bagehot seems to have been most often wrong on his non-banking opinions.

[Bobby Wuertz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably deserves 4 stars but i gave it three only because for me it was not a book i wanted to pick back up every chance that i had. This book is well put together and Bagehot’s story is worth knowing if you have an interest in the banking world.

[Chris Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

Victorian economics is (understandably) not everyone’s thing, but if you are into history and the evolution of modern economic theory and furthermore regularly read the Economist, (Bagehot was the magazine's first Editor and there is to this day a weekly column named after him), then you’ll likely walk away from this satisfied that you put the time in to absorb its wisdom.

Of course, most people will find reading this akin to watching the paint dry on the wall, and that's fine too..

A good read for PATIENT (and focused) economic nerds...

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite being comprehensive, not as illuminating as I had hoped and the writing was frequently distracting, as if the author didn't plan the chapters well and couldn't figure out his timelines or footnotes and then got rushed to publish

[Crt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good. A different era of sound money, when governments borrowed short term and with every intention of paying things back. Central banks sound only be the lender of last resort at high interest rates, and if enterprises fail because they are too indebted, that’s just too bad.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dry, sometimes hard to understand. I think the author wrote in a dandyish style that was unnecessary.

[Keith Wheeles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good writing, excellent subject. He didn’t found the Economist newspaper/magazine, but he made it a force in financial journalism. A ‘liberal’ Victorian gentleman of the era of John Stuart Mill.

[John Stelman]

If you want a great historical perspective to monetary policy and central banking - this would be a good starting point!

[Gerald Greene · Rating 4 out of 5]

The "and Times" part of the title is true and makes up the greater part of the book.

[George Crofts · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book about Victorian finance and the various bank runs that took place in the 1820’s the 1840s and yhe 1870s. It sheds light on our current banking problems,