Toynbee

Toynbee, ARNOLD (1852-83), philanthropist, was the son of a London surgeon. He was for two years at a military college, and then spent four at Balliol College, Oxford. He was much influenced by the social teaching of Ruskin. In 1875 he went to live in Whitechapel, and worked amongst the poor there. He was never strong, and the excitement attending the delivery of a public lecture, at which he encountered much interruption, is believed to have hastened his end. In his memory Toynbee Hall was established to carry on his work after his death, the study of political economy, practical and theoretical, being one of its chief objects, though all forms of literature and art are brought as close to the minds of the people as possible. Toynbee's Industrial Revolution embodies his most important economic lectures.