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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009
It is an accident of birth that has brought to a retired College Tutor the honour of giving the first Prothero lecture. To declare my interest at once, it happens that Sir George Prothero's wife was my mother's sister; both my parents died before my sister and I could remember them. We occasionally stayed as children with the Protheros at 24 Bedford Square, but I hardly began to know my uncle better until I was an undergraduate in the last three years of his life, and I was still too raw to get much deeper than the sense that here was a quiet, dignified man, obviously distinguished but overworked and tired. He died in 1922 at the age of 73. There were no children. Before she died in 1934, Lady Prothero gave me the diaries which he had kept with hardly a break for fifty years, and some bundles of letters to him, mostly 1914–18.I am ashamed to say that I hardly did more than skim these diaries and letters until, after my retirement, I was asked by this Society's Council to look over the papers and letters which Prothero had bequeathed to the Society. These came to it on his widow's death, along with most of his historical library, and with his residuary estate.
page 101 note 1 Aug. 1872 to June 1922, in 14 notebooks; but the second was not given to me (4 June 1880 to 30 Aug. 1883, covering his engagement, and the first year of his marriage). Three slimmer notebooks contain separately his diary in the U.S.A. (Dec. 1909 to July 1910). The third of these also covers his visit to European capitals (May–June 1914) and a visit to the front in France (Nov. 1916).
page 101 note 2 In what follows, quotations not otherwise attributed will be from the diaries. References to the Prothero papers with the Royal Historical Society will be to PP.
page 102 note 1 PP. 1/4/9 (Dec. 1912), and 1/9/6 (May 1917). There are some lively letters from Cecil (1920–21) in PP. 1/12/7–11.
page 103 note 1 The Librarian of King's College kindly made available Whitney's typescript paper, which was also used by Miss McLachlan, J. O. [Mrs Lindsay] in her article on ‘The Cambridge Historical Tripos’ in the Cambridge Historical Journal, ix, I (1947), pp. 78–104.Google Scholar
page 103 note 2 Lord Ernle, Whippingham to Westminster (1938), ch. 1, describes his own childhood there, but hardly mentions his elder brothers.
page 103 note 3 Ward, A. W., Suggestions towards the establishment of a History Tripos (C.U. Press, 1872).Google Scholar
page 103 note 4 PP. 2/1/5–7 (Kegan Paul).
page 104 note 1 PP. 2/1/3–4 (Longman); and 8/1/packet III.
page 104 note 2 Fellowship and Lectureships: to the Provost and Fellows of King's College (Cambridge, 18 Dec. 1877).Google ScholarCfBrowning's, OscarConsiderations on the reform of the Statutes of King's College (Cambridge, Dec. 1877).Google Scholar
page 105 note 1 The Librarian of King's College kindly allowed me to use these typescript Memoirs. Box I (typescript of 137 pp.), pp. 66–7, 104, 106–17.
page 107 note 1 Mary Reed Bobbitt, With dearest Love to All: The Life and Letters of Lady Jebb (1960), pp. 141, 159. At p. 96 there is a photograph of Augusta, Fanny and Eleanor Butcher.
page 108 note 1 PP. 2/1/10 (printed testimonials).
page 109 note 1 PP. 2/2/1.
page 109 note 2 PP. 2/1/13; and C.U. Library, Acton MSS Box 6443, Nos. 7, 12, 13, 22, 231–4.
page 110 note 1 Wright, R. T., The Cambridge Modern History: an account of its origin, authorship and production (C.U. Press, 1907).Google ScholarClark, G. N., ‘The origin of the Cambridge Modern History’, in Cambridge Historical Journal, viii. 2 (1945), pp. 57–64. The minutes of the C.U. Press Syndicate (kindly communicated to me by the Secretary) show that Acton had been assisted by Leathes and Archbold since November 1896, and by Figgis since March 1900; that Ward had been appointed Assistant Editor in June 1897 (but, at his own request, the appointment was not made public); and that the work of Archbold and Figgis came to an end when Ward, Prothero and Leathes were made joint editors in November 1901.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 110 note 2 PP. 2/2/7.
page 111 note 1 London, Royal Historical Society, 1969.
page 111 note 2 PP. 2/3/1–2.
page 111 note 3 PP. 2/3/4 and 2/4/2.
page 111 note 4 A. F. Pollard, ‘The University of London and the study of history’, published in Factors in Modern History (1904; with additional comments in the 2nd and 3rd editions, 1926, 1932).
page 112 note 1 PP. 5 (lists, notes, correspondence, card–index).
page 112 note 2 Tedder, H. R., report in Transactions, viii (1914), pp. 41—54.Google Scholar
page 112 note 3 PP. 2/3/4.
page 113 note 1 What follows adds a little to the brief account given in Vol. I of the Proceedings of the British Academy (1903), pp. vii—ix. PP. 2/2/2–3, and diaries.
page 114 note 1 PP. 2/4/4 and 2/4/10.
page 115 note 1 Box I (envelope with 53 pp.), pp. 33–35, 39.
page 116 note 1 MS. and typescript of one lecture on the last years of the Second Empire (? Rede Lecture) in PP. 4/4/3. Printed analysis (no text) of Creighton Lecture on ‘The Arrival of Napoleon III’ in PP. 4/4/5. MS. of eight lectures on Napoleon III (presumably Lowell Lectures) in PP. 4/4/1–2. Correspondence about the lectures at Harvard, in PP. 2/4/8–9, and newspaper cuttings in PP. 6/1/packet II.
page 116 note 2 Notebook in the writer's possession, giving a list of articles and their authors, Jan. 1895 to Oct. 1921.
page 117 note 1 The preacher, the Revd. H. R. Haweis (1838–1901), grandson of the Countess of Huntingdon's Chaplain, was incumbent of St James's, Marylebone, 1866–1901, a noted preacher, Lowell lecturer 1885, and author of The Broad Church (1891) and many other books. On graduating B.A. from Trinity College, Cambridge, he had served under Garibaldi in 1860.
page 117 note 2 PP. 2/2/4–5.
page 118 note 1 Mrs Ward meant the words ‘at once’ literally. Having known Creighton at Oxford, she wrote much later of ‘Creighton, our life–long friend…always the same restless, energetic, practical spirit, his mind set upon the Kingdom of God, and convinced that in and through the English Church a man might strive for the Kingdom as faithfully and honestly as anywhere else. The intellectual doubts and misgivings on the subject of taking orders, so common in the Oxford of his day, Creighton had never felt. His life had ripened to a rich maturity without—apparently—any of those fundamental conflicts which had scarred the life of other men.’ A Writer's Recollections (1918), pp. 141–2.
page 118 note 2 John Murray to Prothero, 8 Nov. 1898; cf. Rowland Prothero to hisbrother, same day; and 7 other letters, Nov. 1898. PP. 2/1/14.
page 119 note 1 Alfred Fawkes, 1850–1930. Eton and Balliol. An ardent tractarian as a deacon (1874), he joined the Church of Rome in 1875 and was ordained by Manning in 1881. Turning gradually to modernism, he was received back into the Church of England in 1909 and became a country vicar from 1911 until his death. His Studies in Modernism (1913) included five articles from the Quarterly (1904, 1909, 1912, 1913)– He published several other books.
page 119 note 2 M. G. Glazebrook, 1858–1926. Balliol. Headmaster of Clifton College. Canon of Ely 1905—26. Author of The Faith of a Modern Churchman (1918), etc.
page 119 note 3 J. Gamble, 1859–1929. Trin. Coll., Dublin. A vicar in Bristol, 1892–1922, and a Canon there 1922–9. Author of Christian Faith and Worship (1912), etc.
page 120 note 1 PP. 6/3/1–4 (1895–1916); and 2/3/3 (imperial defence, 1904).
page 120 note 2 PP. 1/10/7 (24 Feb and 8 May 1918), and 1/11/6 (9 Dec. 1919).
page 120 note 3 In 1916–18, he was a member, and soon Chairman, of a committee for promoting a short–lived Anglo–Japanese monthly review, The New East, edited by J. W. Robertson–Scott in Japan. PP. 3/4/2 and 6/5/6.
page 121 note 1 Diary, 24 Feb. 1906 (following Churchill's attack on Milner in the debate on Chinese coolie labour); 21 March 1909 (in a conversation with Chirol about Grey and Churchill); 27 March 1914 (on the occasion of the Curragh affair). CfChurchill, Randolph, W. S. Churchill, II, 166–70 and ch.13.Google Scholar
page 122 note 1 E.g. in 1915, to be President of the London branch of the Historical Association (PP. 1/7/9); and in December 1919, to help Ward in editing the Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy (PP. 1/11/17).
page 123 note 1 At his death, Prothero had ready for press a much more comprehensive list of about 8,000 titles, published in 1923 with a prefatory note by SirStephen Gaselee, v4 Select Analytical List of Books Concerning the Great War.
page 123 note 2 PP. 3/2/1—3 (more than 200 letters).
page 123 note 3 PP. 3/3/1–3 (more than 100 letters).
page 123 note 4 PP. 3/6/3 (12 in 1915–17) and PP. 3/1/2 (12 in 1919–21).
page 124 note 1 PP. 1/9/6–7.
page 124 note 2 PP. 1/9/15 (Aug.–Sept. 1917).
page 124 note 3 PP. 2/6/5 (Nov. 1918).
page 124 note 4 PP. 2/6/5 (March–June 1919). For Prothero's stay in Paris, his diary is supplemented by daily letters to his wife.
page 124 note 5 Peace Handbooks, issued by the Historical Section of the Foreign Office.Nos 1–162 (less Nos 24, 32, 49, 75, cancelled) each separately paginated. Published late in 1920 by H.M.S.O. in 25 volumes. In the editorial note to each volume, Protheto mentioned the help given by the Intelligence Division (Naval Staff) of the Admiralty for the geographical sections and some maps; by the Geographical Section of the General Staff (Military Intelligence Division) of the War Office for most maps; and by the War Trade Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office for the economic sections.
page 127 note 1 .Life and Letters of Leslie Stephen (1906), p. 283.
