Editing Thomas Babington Macaulay (section)

==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.<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]]{{fact|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]].