Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800-1859) was a nineteenth-century English poet, historian and Whig politician. He wrote extensively as an essayist and reviewer, and on British history. During the 1840s he began work on his most famous history, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, publishing the first two volumes in 1848, the next two volumes appearing in 1855. He is said to have completed the final volumes of the history at Greenwood Lodge, Ditton Marsh, and Thames Ditton, which he rented in 1854. At his death, he had only got as far as the reign of King William III. His most famous works are: Lays of Ancient Rome (1842), Critical and Historical Essays, 2 volumes, edited by Alexander James Grieve (1843), The History of England from the Accession of James II, 5 volumes (1848-61) and Milton and Machiavelli (1868).