Bancroft — Chambers's Encyclopaedia

Bancroft, GEORGE, principally distinguished as the author of the history of his country, but not without note as a diplomatist and statesman, was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, October 3, 1800. At the age of thirteen he entered Harvard

College, graduated with high honours in 1817, and spent two years in study at Göttingen, Germany, where in 1820 he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Returning to America in 1822, he served a year as Greek tutor in Harvard College when he and Dr Cogswell, a fellow-tutor, established the Round Hill School at Northampton, Massachusetts, with which Bancroft was associated until 1830. In 1823 he published a volume of poems, and subsequently made translations from the German of the minor poems of Goethe, Schiller, &c., and of some of the historico-political works of Heeren. In 1834 appeared the first volume of his History of the United States from the Discovery of the Continent; followed by the second and third volumes in 1837 and 1840 respectively—the whole embracing The History of the Colonisation of the United States. These were succeeded in the interval from 1852 to 1860 by five volumes narrating the history of the colonial period to the Declaration of Independence, and in 1866 and 1874 respectively by the two concluding volumes, bringing the history to the treaty of peace with the mother-country in 1782. Bancroft subsequently published The History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States (2 vols. 1882), which afterwards formed a constituent part of the revised edition of the complete History of the United States, embraced in six volumes (1882-84). In his political sentiments, Bancroft in early life was a democrat. He served as collector of the port of Boston (1838-41), under President Van Buren, and was an unsuccessful candidate for the governorship of Massachusetts in 1844. He accepted a seat in the cabinet of President Polk as secretary of the Navy in 1845, and the following year was appointed minister to the court of St James, a position which he filled until 1849, with honour to his country. A period of retirement from public life followed his return to America. In the civil war he was heartily in accord with the national government, and in 1867 he was appointed by President Johnson minister to Berlin, serving with distinguished ability until recalled at his own request in 1874. He afterwards resided in Washington, contributing occasional articles to magazines. He died 17th January 1891.