Henry Fawcett
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Henry Fawcett (1833 – 1884) was a blind English statesman and economist.
He was born in Salisbury, and educated at the University of Cambridge, where he became Fellow of Trinity Hall. A statue of him stands in Salisbury Market Square.
In 1858, when he was 25, he was blinded by a shooting accident, in spite of which he continued with his studies, especially in economics, and in 1863 published his Manual of Political Economy, becoming in the same year Professor of Political Economy in Cambridge.
After repeated defeats he was elected member of Parliament (MP for Brighton in 1865. He campaigned for women's suffrage, and through this met his wife Millicent Garrett whom he married in 1867.
In 1880 he was appointed Postmaster-General. He introduced many innovations, including parcel post, postal orders, and licensing changes to permit payphones and trunk lines.
His career was, however, cut short by his premature death from pleurisy, but not before he had made himself a recognised authority on economics, his works on which include The Economic Position of the British Labourer (1871), Labour and Wages, etc.
He was elected Rector of Glasgow University, 1883
Sir Leslie Stephen wrote a biography of him, Life of Henry Fawcett, in 1885.
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| Preceded by: The Lord John Manners |
Postmaster General 1880–1884 |
Succeeded by: George John Shaw-Lefevre |
This article incorporates public domain text from: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J.M. Dent & sons; New York, E.P. Dutton.
