Westminster Review

What it is

The Westminster Review was a quarterly journal founded and funded in 1823 by Jeremy Bentham, who had long wanted a publication to spread Radical political views. It was published from 1824 to 1914. James Mill was a driving force behind it in its early years, and his son John Stuart Mill also wrote for it.

Why it matters

The journal became the main outlet of the Philosophical Radicals, a reforming political movement Bentham helped lead. Its early issues directly attacked the rival Edinburgh Review as biased toward the aristocratic Whig party, showing how Bentham used the press to promote his ideas about reform, utility, and government. Later the journal became important in debates over evolution and other major ideas of the nineteenth century.

Look closer

• Why might Bentham have thought a journal was a useful tool for spreading his political ideas?
• What does the journal's early rivalry with the Edinburgh Review tell you about the political divisions of the time?
• How did the journal's purpose change in the decades after Bentham's involvement ended?