Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 June 2009
Most historians know Robert Lowe (1811–1892) as W. E. Gladstone's first Chancellor (1868–73) and the leading orator against the Reform Bill of 1867. Educationists to this day criticize or praise his Revised Code of 1862, which introduced payment by results in schools. Historians of economic thought add Lowe's critique of relativism (evinced by his views on Ireland) and his stridently classical statements of the role of political economy from his later dispute with the English historical school.