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SUMMARY:Walter Bagehot: the life and times of the greatest Victorian - Jam
 es Grant (Grant’s Interest Rate Observer)
DTSTART:20200309T170000Z
DTEND:20200309T183000Z
UID:TALK134944@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Duncan Needham
DESCRIPTION:During the upheavals of 2007–09\, the chairman of the Federa
 l Reserve had the name of a Victorian icon on the tip of his tongue: Walte
 r Bagehot. Banker\, man of letters\, inventor of the Treasury bill\, and a
 uthor of Lombard Street\, the still-canonical guide to stopping a run on t
 he banks\, Bagehot prescribed the doctrines that—decades later—inspire
 d the radical responses to the world’s worst financial crises.\n\nBorn i
 n the small market town of Langport\, just after the Panic of 1825 swept a
 cross England\, Bagehot followed in his father’s footsteps and took a po
 sition at the local family bank—but his influence on financial matters w
 ould soon spread far beyond the county of Somerset. Persuasive and precoci
 ous\, he came to hold sway in political circles\, making high-profile frie
 nds\, including William Gladstone—and enemies\, such as Lord Overstone a
 nd Benjamin Disraeli. As a prolific essayist on wide-ranging topics\, Bage
 hot won the admiration of Matthew Arnold and Woodrow Wilson\, and delighte
 d 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 Grea
 test Victorian."\n\nIn James Grant’s colorful and groundbreaking biograp
 hy\, 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 Drawing on a wealth of historical documents\, correspondence\, and pu
 blications\, Grant paints a vivid portrait of the banker and his world.
LOCATION:Darwin College\, Old Library
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