Henry Reeve

Abstract

Although most men and women who knew John Stuart Mill personally held him in high regard, the judgement of Henry Reeve leaned in the other direction. Reeve's mother was the elder sister of Sarah Austin, who became so friendly with Mill that he addressed her as 'Mutter'. In his earlier years Henry Reeve had enjoyed a youthful friendship with Mill. They first met when Mill was in Norwich on holiday with the Austins after his return from France. Reeve was about eight when he took part in 'a little drama' Mill wrote. Like Mill, Reeve had the intellectual abilities to rise above his modest social origins. By the time he was twenty he had travelled in Europe and become acquainted with a number of political and artistic figures. His uncle, John Austin, had helped in this respect by using his influence to secure for Reeve a commission to report on the French system of criminal justice.