James Fitzjames Stephen and the Landscape of Victorian Political Thought

Abstract

In 1858 an aged and weakened James Stephen, the once-formidable “Over-Secretary of the Colonies” whose influence on the course of British imperial administration included such momentous tasks as drafting the bill to end slavery in the colonies and contributing to much of the administrative–constitutional groundwork for colonial self-government, wrote his son James Fitzjames words of encouragement on his rising writing career: “Time was when I enjoyed a repute as a writer of Edinburgh Reviews and from the bottom of my heart I hope as I sincerely believe that you will eclipse me even more than the elder Mill has been eclipsed by the younger.” For all the power he had exercised in the Colonial Office, and for all the worldly success that Fitzjames might enjoy in the legal profession he had been practicing for a half-decade at that point, there was something unique about literary fame that James wished his son to have.