William Empson (1791 – 10 December 1852) was an English barrister, professor and journalist. William Empson was educated at

Winchester Winchester (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs N ...

, and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

. He was Professor at the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

's College from 1824 to 1852. He contributed regularly to the ''

Edinburgh Review The ''Edinburgh Review'' is the title of four distinct intellectual and cultural magazines. The best known, longest-lasting, and most influential of the four was the third, which was published regularly from 1802 to 1929. ''Edinburgh Review'', ...

'' (1823–49) and was for some years its editor (1847–52).

Life

He was educated at Winchester School, where he was a schoolfellow of

Thomas Arnold Thomas Arnold (13 June 1795 – 12 June 1842) was an English educator and historian. He was an early supporter of the Broad Church Anglican movement. As headmaster of Rugby School from 1828 to 1841, he introduced several reforms that were widel ...

, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. 1812, and M.A. 1815. On 2 July 1824 he became professor of "general polity and the laws of England" at the East India College, Haileybury, a chair which had been formerly occupied by

Sir James Mackintosh Sir James Mackintosh FRS FRSE (24 October 1765 – 30 May 1832) was a Scottish jurist, Whig politician and Whig historian. His studies and sympathies embraced many interests. He was trained as a doctor and barrister, and worked also as a jo ...

. He was a close friend of his colleague,

Robert Malthus Thomas Robert Malthus (; 13/14 February 1766 – 29 December 1834) was an English economist, cleric, and scholar influential in the fields of political economy and demography. In his 1798 book ''An Essay on the Principle of Population'', Mal ...

. Empson died at Haileybury 10 December 1852.

''Edinburgh Review''

Empson began to contribute to the ''Edinburgh Review'' in 1823, and by 1849 had written over sixty articles for it on law, politics, and literary topics. Empson is now best known for his October 1843 article on

Jeremy Bentham Jeremy Bentham (; 4 February Dual dating, 1747/8 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.

5 February 1748 Old Style and New Style dates, N.S. 5 (five) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number. Humans, and many other animals, have 5 digits on their limbs. Mathematics 5 is a Fermat pri ...

– 6 June 1832) was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer regarded as the founder of mo ...

, a review of the ''Memoir of Jeremy Bentham'' by

John Bowring Sir John Bowring , or Phrayā Siam Mānukūlakicca Siammitra Mahāyaśa (17 October 1792 – 23 November 1872) was a British political economist, traveller, writer, literary translator, polyglot and the fourth Governor of Hong Kong. He was ...

. It produced a contradiction from

John Stuart Mill John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, politician and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism and social liberalism, he contributed widely to s ...

, published in the ''Review'' for January 1844. Empson had picked up on Bowring's statement that Bentham was remarkably selfish, comparable only to his follower

James Mill James Mill (born James Milne; 6 April 1773 – 23 June 1836) was a Scottish historian, economist, political theorist and philosopher. He is counted among the founders of the Ricardian school of economics. He also wrote '' The History of Britis ...

.W. J. Mander, Alan P. F. Sell, Gavin Budge (editors), ''The Dictionary of Nineteenth-century British Philosophers'', Volume 1 (2002), pp. 357–8. In January 1845 he wrote on the ''Fragment of the Church'' of Thomas Arnold, with whose views on educational and church questions he was in sympathy. Other articles offended

Edward Bulwer Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (; 25 May 1803 – 18 January 1873) was an English writer and politician. He served as a Whig member of Parliament from 1831 to 1841 and a Conservative from 1851 to 1866. He was Secr ...

and Henry Brougham, who called him a bad imitator of Macaulay. Empson succeeded to the editorship of the ''Edinburgh Review'' in 1847, on the death of Macvey Napier.

Family

On 27 June 1838, Empson married Charlotte Jeffrey (b. 1814), daughter of

Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey (23 October 1773 – 26 January 1850) was a Scottish judge and literary critic. Life He was born at 7 Charles Street near Potterow in south Edinburgh, the son of George Jeffrey, a clerk in the Court of Sessio ...

.The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, Volume 1
Duke University archive
accessed 9 October 2007

Notes

External links

Obituary notice - ''The New York Times'', 15 January 1853
;Attribution 1791 births 1852 deaths British magazine editors Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge {{UK-law-bio-stub