George Grote

George Grote (1794–1871) was an English banker, radical politician and historian of ancient Greece. He worked in the family bank for more than thirty years, was a friend of James and John Stuart Mill and of Bentham, and sat in Parliament as a member for the City of London from 1832 to 1841, campaigning for the secret ballot. He then devoted himself to the History of Greece, published in twelve volumes between 1846 and 1856, which treated Athenian democracy with a sympathy new in English scholarship. Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates followed in 1865. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.