Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794), an English historian. A native of Surrey. Gibbon was educated at Westminster, Oxford and Lausanne, Switzerland. Gibbon traveled extensively in southern Europe. He entered the English Parliament as a Tory in 1774. In 1764, while he was in Rome, it occurred to Gibbon to write a history of the Roman Empire, a composition to which he devoted 24 years. The first volume of his monumental work, a History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, appeared in 1776, and the last in 1788. It is said that when his task was finally ended, Gibbon did not know what to do with himself. During the years 1783-93 he resided in Lausanne again. Gibbon inherited wealth, but was never married, the romance of his life being an unsuccessful suit for the hand of the Swiss lady. He never took the matter to heart evidently, for he visited her later in Paris.

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