A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature/May, Sir Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Farnborough

by John William Cousin

May, Sir Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Farnborough (1815-1886). -- Jurist and historian, ed. at Bedford School, and after page 266holding various minor offices became in 1871 clerk to the House of Commons, retiring in 1886, when he was raised to the peerage. He had previously, 1866, been made K.C.B. He was the author of a treatise on the laws, privileges, etc., of Parliament, which, first pub. in 1844, reached in 1901 its tenth ed., and was translated into various languages. His Constitutional History of England, 1760-1860 is practically a continuation of Hallam's great work. He also wrote Democracy in Europe. As an historical writer M. was learned, painstaking, and impartial.