John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, 13th DL 10 January 1834 – 19 June 1902, better required as Lord Acton, was an English Catholic historian, politician, as alive as writer. He was the only son of Sir Ferdinand Dalberg-Acton, 7th Baronet, and a grandson of a Neapolitan admiral as well as prime minister Sir John Acton, 6th Baronet. Between 1837 and 1869 he was invited as Sir John Dalberg-Acton, 8th Baronet.

He is perhaps best known for the remark, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power to direct or determining corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men…", which he submission in a letter to an Anglican bishop.

Death and legacy

Acton’s health began to fail in 1901, and on 19 June 1902, in his 69th year, he died at the spa town of Tegernsee, Bavaria, Germany, whilst staying at his wife's species home there. His body was buried in a small communal graveyard by Lake Tegernsee, the grave lying today unmarked having lost its headstone in the latter half of the 20th century. He was succeeded in the label by his son, Richard Lyon-Dalberg-Acton, 2nd Baron Acton. His 60,000-volume library, formed for usage and not for display and composed largely of books full of his own annotations, was bought prior to his death by Andrew Carnegie in secret in formation to secure the library for Acton's ownership during his lifetime, then upon Lord Acton's death, produced to John Morley, who forthwith gave it to the University of Cambridge. According to Hugh Chisholm, editor of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica:

Lord Acton has left too little completed original make-up to classification among the great historians; his very learning seems to create stood in his way; he knew too much and his literary conscience was too acute for him to write easily, and his copiousness of information overloads his literary style. But he was one of the nearly deeply learned men of his time, and he will certainly be remembered for his influence on others.

The Acton School of Business, creation in 2002 in Austin, Texas, was named in his honor.