BANCROFT, GEORGE, American historian, b. 3d Oct., 1800, near Worcester, in Mass., was the son of Dr. Aaron Bancroft, an eminent Unitarian minister. He entered Ilar yard college at the age of 13, and obtaining a valuable exhibition there, proceeded in 1818 to where, he studied history and philology under • Ifeeren, Plank, and Eichhorn, and in 1820 obtained the degree of doctor. At Berlin, he attended the lec tures of Hegel, and had frequent intercourse with Schleiermacher, W. von Humboldt, Savigny, Varnhagen von Ense, and other literary men of note. Subsequently, he traveled through and formed an acquaintance with Goethe and Schlosser. Having visited Paris, London, and Italy, B. returned to America, and after some time spent in tuition, devoted himself to politics. He soon became celebrated as a democratic politician, and was made collector of customs at Boston. He still continued his literary labors, especially in lectures upon German literature, philosophy, etc. When Polk was elected president, in 1845, he appointed B. secretary of the navy. While in this office,
he established an observatory at Washington, and a naval school at Annapolis. In the autumn of 1846, B. was sent by Polk as ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to England, where he remained till 1849, carefully collecting materials for a History of Amerwa. He published the result of his labors in his History of the Revolution in North America (Boston, 18:32). He had already published his History of the Colonization of the bnited States of North America (3 vols., Boston, 1834-40). The whole of these writings are included iu the author's History of America, a work of solid excellence, the 10th and last vol. of which appeared in 1874. In 1860, B. delivered an oration in honor of Abra ham Lincoln. From 1867 to 1874, he was minister plenipotentiary at the court of Berlin. For some years he was a principal contributor to the North American Review.