Greg William Rathbone

Greg, William Rathbone (1809-81), an able essayist, was born at Manchester. He gave up the business of a mill-owner in 1850, and next year published his Creed of Christendom. He subsequently contributed to the reviews, and published several other essays, which were collected in Essays on Political and Social Science, Literary and Social Judgments (4th edition, 1877), and Miscellaneous Essays. He was Comptroller of the Stationery Office from 1864 to 1877, and had previously held a commissionership of Customs. His son, Percy (1836-1889), wrote novels (Across the Zodiac, etc.) and a strongly partisan History of the United States to 1887.