On this day exactly 140 years ago, Britain’s most influential political and economic journalist was sitting in a big house on Westside, Wimbledon Common, writing about the banks and financial world of the City of London.

He had already produced the ultimate introduction to the country’s political institutions, now he would do something similar for the business base of the British Empire.

Described by a biographer as “Victorian England’s most versatile genius”, Walter Bagehot (1826-1877), the son of a banker, was then living in a house on Westside known as The Poplars (pictured below).

The following year, after his departure, the house was taken over by the engineer William Jacomb (see Heritage story 15 June 2012) who renamed it Bardon Lodge.

Today it is just No 21 Westside and - coloured pink - a familiar landmark for visitors to the Common.

Wimbledon Times: The Poplars

Walter Bageot lived there from 1870 to 1874 with his sister-in-law, Emilie Barrington and her husband Russell.

Afterwards he moved to the home of Mr and Mrs W R Greg at Park Lodge, Parkside, continuing his work from there.

Critique of banks still relevant today

On that day 140 years ago on 26 April 1873, he wrote an advertisement for his new book Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market.

He had started it nearly three years earlier but the delay proved no problem as it became the definitive work explaining to later generations how both London’s and the world’s money markets relied on the Bank of England as custodian of the central gold reserve.

This would remain so well into the 20th century. Furthermore, Bagehot’s coverage of the management of financial crises remains relevant in the 21st century.

It was cited by central bankers at the start of today’s global banking disasters. Equally important, his book explained the development of joint stock banking in England through the replacement of older private banking firms by modern companies created through amalgamations - known today as mergers and acquisitions.

Yet, influential as this book would become, it was Bagehot’s earlier work The English Constitution for which he is still most famous today. 

Although originally published in 1867 before he came to Wimbledon, it was while he was living at The Poplars that he wrote the introduction to its second edition on 20 June 1872.

Until Bagehot’s book appeared, no-one had ever really explained the realities of constitutional government in Britain, with the precise workings and relationships between the Cabinet, the Monarchy, the two Houses of Parliament and the checks and balances that led to changes in administrations.

Without a formally written constitution like those in the US or France, for example, or universal suffrage, England and the rest of the UK remained a mystery to many of its own citizens, with much blurring between myth and reality.

A dry subject perhaps, but Bageot’s genius was in being able to write about it both intelligibly and amusingly.

It is also a mark of his lasting achievement that The English Constitution was technically out of date almost immediately it appeared. Benjamin Disraeli’s Reform Act of 1867 changed the Parliament he described yet despite every further change since then, Bagehot’s book still remains the best overall introduction available.

The Economist: Bagehot's legacy lives on

Nor were his writings published only in books.

Most of his essays originally appeared in The Economist magazine, covering complex relations between governments and Parliament as well as subjects ranging from reform to education, the emerging trade union movement and public ownership.

To this day The Economist still has a weekly commentary on current affairs in Britain entitled Bageot.

This is not entirely surprising. Walter Bageot himself was its editor-in-chief from 1861 until his death on 24 March 1877, aged just 51.