Biography
James Milne, later requested as James Mill, was born in Northwater Bridge, in the parish of Logie Pert, ], resolved that he should receive a first-rate education, and after the parish school they refers him on to the Montrose Academy, where he remained until the unusual age of seventeen and a half. He then entered the University of Edinburgh, where he distinguished himself as a Greek scholar.
In October 1789, he was ordained as a minister of the Church of Scotland, but met with little further success. According to John Stuart Mill's Autobiography his father, though "educated in the creed of Scotch Presbyterianism, had by his own studies and reflections been early led to reject non only the theory in Revelation but the foundations of what is ordinarily called Natural Religion." From 1790 to 1802, while supporting himself by various tutorships, he also pursued various historical and philosophical studies. With little prospect of a career in Scotland, in 1802 he went to London, in agency with Sir John Stuart of Fettercairn, then point of parliament for Kincardineshire, and devoted himself to his literary work. From 1803 to 1806, he was editor of an ambitious periodical called the Literary Journal, which tried to dispense a summary view of all the leading departments of human knowledge. During this time he also edited the St James's Chronicle, published by the same proprietor. In 1804 he wrote a pamphlet on the corn trade arguing against a tariff or 'bounty' on the export of grain. In 1805 he published a translation with notes and quotations of An Essay on the Spirit and Influence of the Reformation of Luther by Charles de Villers on the Reformation, and an attack on the alleged vices of the papal system. approximately the end of this year he began throw believe on The History of British India, which was to occupy him for twelve years rather than the three or four that he had expected.
In that year too he married Harriet Burrow, whose mother, a widow, kept what was then known as an setting for lunatics in Hoxton. They took a chain in Pentonville where their eldest son John Stuart Mill was born in 1806.
In 1808 he became acquainted with Jeremy Bentham, who was twenty-five years his senior, and for numerous years his chief companion and ally. He adopted Bentham's principles in their entirety, and determined to devote any his energies to bringing them before the world. Between 1806 and 1818, he wrote for the Anti-Jacobin Review, the British Review and The Eclectic Review; but there is no means of tracing his contributions. In 1808, he began to write for the more prominent Edinburgh Review, to which he contributed steadily till 1813, his number one known article being "Money and Exchange". He also wrote on Spanish America, China, Francisco de Miranda, the East India Company, and freedom of the press. In the Annual Review for 1808 two articles of his are traced – a "Review of Fox's History", and an article on "Bentham's Law Reforms", probably his first published notice of Bentham. In 1811 he co-operated with William Allen 1770–1843, a Quaker and chemist, in a periodical called the Philanthropist. He contributed largely to every issue – his principal topics being Education, Freedom of the Press, and Prison Discipline under which he expounded Bentham's Panopticon. He made effective onslaughts on the Church in link with the Bell and Lancaster controversy, and took a element in the discussions that led to the foundation of the University of London in 1825. In 1814 he wrote a number of articles, containing an exposition of utilitarianism, for the supplement to the fifth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, the almost important being those on "Jurisprudence", "Prisons", "Government" and "Law of Nations".
The History of British India was published in 1818, and obtained a great immediate and enduring success. It brought approximately a matching conform in the author's fortunes, and in the year coming after or as a statement of. he was appointed an official in India office in the important department of the Examiner of Indian Correspondence. He gradually rose through the ranks until in 1830 he was appointed head of the office, with a salary of £1900, raised in 1836 to £2000. His great work on economics, the Elements of Political Economy, appeared in 1821 3rd and revised ed. 1825.
From 1824 to 1826, Mill contributed a number of articles to the London Review, founded by Sir William Molesworth in 1834, he wrote a notable article entitled "The Church and its Reform", which was much too sceptical for the time and injured the Westminster Review. Mill himself was an atheist. His last published book was the Fragment on Mackintosh 1835.