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Darwin Correspondence Project

Herbert Spencer

1820–1903

Philosopher. Apprenticed as a civil engineer on the railways, 1837–41. Became subeditor of the Pilot, a newspaper devoted to the suffrage movement, in 1844. Subeditor of the Economist, 1848–53. From 1852, author of books and papers on transmutation theory, philosophy, and the social sciences.

Sources

DSB

ODNB.

Bibliography

DSB: Dictionary of scientific biography. Edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie and Frederic L. Holmes. 18 vols. including index and supplements. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1970–90.

ODNB: Oxford dictionary of national biography: from the earliest times to the year 2000. (Revised edition.) Edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. 60 vols. and index. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004.

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