Mill , John Stuart , 1806-1873 , philosopher and MP

John Stuart Mill was born in London in 1806. He was educated at home, studying Greek intensively from early childhood. Whilst reading for the bar in the early 1820s he was converted to the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham. In 1823 he gave up the idea of a law career and went to work for the British East India Company, where he continued to work until 1858. During 1865-1868 he was Independent MP for the City of London and Westminster. During his lifetime, Mill was known as a leading exponent of liberalism and women's rights, as well as utilitarianism, and he was also an influential economic thinker. His stance on the equality of the sexes may have been influenced by the views of his wife Harriet (1807-1858), who was a close friend for more than twenty years before they married in 1851 after her first husband's death. Mill died in Avignon in 1873. His best known works include A System of Logic (1843), Principles of Political Economy (1848), On Liberty (1859), Utilitarianism (1863) and The Subjection of Women (1869).