Leonard Horner

the long version

Who was Leonard Horner? A man who started a revoution in education with the Edinburgh School of Arts - the world's first mechanics' institute and forerunner of Heriot-Watt University; the founder of a top-flight school, the Edinburgh Academy; the first (and only) Warden of London University, a man whose reforming zeal enraged a powerful cabal of professors; a quietly implacable factory inspector whose fight for workers' safety earned the praise of Tory peer and revolutionary communist alike; a tireless promoter of geological research who counted among his friends Charles Darwin and Charles Lyell. Leonard Horner was all of the above. In this compelling biography by Patrick N. O'Farrell, find out all the many facets of this deeply fascinating, and too little-known man.