Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/254

 was the only son of Nassau Thomas and grandson of Aaron Señor, a Spaniard naturalised in England in 1723. He was a graduate of Merton College, Oxford (B.A. 1785, M.A. 1788), and is said to have been a man of remarkable abilities, though he was content with the quiet life of a country clergyman. He died at Umberhorne, Gloucestershire in 1824. His wife was a woman of great beauty, sweetness, and strong practical sense. Nassau Senior's early education was conducted by his father, from whom he imbibed a permanent love of classical literature. He entered Eton on 4 July 1803, and in 1807 was elected a demy of Magdalen College, Oxford. The college tutor desired to make his office a sinecure, and, though Senior's conduct as a student was irreproachable, his reading was self-directed and desultory. He failed at his first appearance in the schools, on account of a hasty answer to a question in divinity and a consequent discussion with the examiner. Stung by the failure, he told his father that he would win a first-class next term. He engaged the services of (Archbishop) Whately, then eminent as a private tutor. He worked unremittingly, formed a lifelong friendship with Whately, and after a few months took a first-class in lit. hum. in 1811. He graduated B.A. in January 1812, and M.A. in 1815. In 1812 he became probationary fellow of Magdalen, and in 1813 Vinerian scholar. He had entered at Lincoln's Inn on 19 Nov. 1810, and in 1812 began his legal studies in London. In 1813 he became a pupil of Sugden (Lord St. Leonards), with whom he formed a warm friendship. He became a certificated conveyancer about 1817, was called to the bar on 28 June 1819, and, when Sugden abandoned conveyancing, succeeded to much of his tutor's practice. A delicate throat and weak voice prevented him from succeeding in other branches of the profession. Among his pupils and friends were Romilly, master of the rolls, C. P. Villiers, Edward Denison (afterwards bishop of Salisbury), and Richard Ford, of the ‘Handbook of Spain.’ In 1821 he married Mary Charlotte, daughter of John Mair of Iron Acton, and settled in Kensington Square. He then built a house in Kensington Gore, which he occupied from 1827 to the end of his life. His hospitality there led Sydney Smith to call it the chapel of ease ‘to Lansdowne House.’ Though a steady worker, he was from the first eminently sociable.

Senior's attention had been especially directed to political economy. He had been much impressed by the evils of misdirected charity in his father's parish, and at the age of twenty-five, as he afterwards said, resolved to reform the English poor law. His first publication upon economic questions was an article upon the state of agriculture in the ‘Quarterly Review’ for July 1821. It is a criticism of a well-known report of a committee of the House of Commons, and an orthodox exposition of free-trade doctrine.

He became a member of the Political Economy Club in 1823, and for many years took a very active part in their debates (Minutes, privately printed, 1882). In 1825 he was chosen as the first holder of the professorship of political economy at Oxford, founded in that year by Henry Drummond [q. v.] He held it for five years, when he was succeeded by his friend Whately. He afterwards held it for another term, from 1847 to 1852. He published several lectures, which won him a reputation both in England and France.

In 1830, at the request of the home secretary, Lord Melbourne, he prepared a report upon trade combinations, the substance of which is given in his ‘Historical and Philosophical Essays.’ In 1833 he was appointed a member of the poor-law commission, and was the author of the famous report upon which was founded the poor law of 1834. Senior's writings upon this subject show his thorough familiarity with the history and actual working of the laws, and a principal share in the credit of one of the most beneficial measures of his time must be assigned to him. A sum of 500l. and a knighthood were offered to him for these services. He declined both, and afterwards refused offers of a Canadian governorship and of the position of legal member of the Indian Council. He also declined a place on the new poor-law board. He was appointed master in chancery on 10 June 1836, and he held the office until its abolition in 1855, when he retired upon his full salary. He was in later years a member of several royal commissions—the factory commission of 1837, the hand-loom commission of 1841, the Irish poor-law commission of 1844, and the education commission of 1857.

Senior had at an early period become well known in official and literary circles in London society. Among his chief friends were Whately, Sydney Smith, Lord Lansdowne, Copleston, Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, and Sir James Stephen. Besides his economical writings he had contributed several articles to the ‘Quarterly’ and ‘London’ reviews upon the ‘Waverley Novels,’ which are warmly praised and often quoted by Lockhart (Life of Scott, ch. liv.). At a later period he wrote an article upon ‘Vanity Fair’ in the ‘Edin-