Acton, LORD.

Acton, LORD. John Acton, grandson of the preceding, was born at Naples in 1834, and succeeded his father, a Shropshire baronet, in 1838. He was educated at Oscott under Cardinal Wiseman, and at Munich by Dr Döllinger, the 'Old Catholic' theologian, whose views he zealously espoused, distinguishing himself in Rome, in 1870, by his hostility to the dogma of papal infallibility. He sat for Carlow (1859-65), and was raised to the peerage by Mr Gladstone in 1869, under the title of Baron Acton of Aldenham. The leader of the Liberal Catholics in England, he was editor of the Home and Foreign Review (1862-64), and afterwards of the Weekly Chronicle and North British Review; whilst by his contributions to the controversy on the Vatican decrees (1874), by his articles on Wolsey (1877), on German Schools of History (1886), &c., he earned a wide reputation. A D.C.L. and LL.D., he was appointed professor of history at Cambridge in 1895.