Walter Bagehot

Born to a wealthy family, Bagehot turned down a career in law to work in the family banking and shipping business before turning to journalism. As a journalist he founded Britain’s short-lived National Review, and was later editor-in-chief of The Economist. In addition to writing on economic topics, Bagehot also wrote The English Constitution, a comparison of Britain’s unwritten constitution with America’s written one. He caught pneumonia in 1867, and never fully recovered, dying in 1877 from complications of a cold.