¹ Quoted from the evidence of Montague Burrows and Frederick York Powell to the Select Committee on Higher Education, 1867, XIII (23 July 1867), 410, 414.

² Powicke, F. M., Historical study in Oxford, an inaugural lecture (Oxford, 1929), p. 17Google Scholar. See also Woodward, E. L., Short journey (1912)Google Scholar.

³ All the data about honours graduates, collected in the university of Oxford, Historical register of 1900 (Oxford, 1900)Google Scholar and Supplement to the historical register of 1900 including an alphabetical record of university honours and distinctions for the years 1901–1930 (Oxford, 1934)Google Scholar, was put into an RIQS program in a Cyber 760 computer at C.S.U.N. The computer study clearly documents the numerical dominance of history in Oxford by 1901

⁴ Wilkinson, Spenser, the first Chichele professor of military history, in his inaugural, The university and the study of war (Oxford, 1909), pp. 25–6Google Scholar. First-class graduates included Archbishop Cosmo Lang, who had also taken a second in Greats; Herbert Samuel; and C. H. K. Marten, the provost of Eton who was knighted for teaching history to Princess Elizabeth.

⁵ Galbraith, V. H., quoted in Hartley, , ‘Successors to Jowett’, in Davis, H. W. C., A history of Balliol College (Oxford, 1962), p. 241Google Scholar. See, in Balliol College Library, A. L. Smith's ‘Lectures on political and social questions’, Box 1, and his 1915 comments on J. H. Burrows's examination paper. See too, preface to Why we are at war. Great Britain's case by members of the Oxford faculty of modern history (Oxford, 1914)Google Scholar.

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⁷ Fredericq, Paul, The study of history in England and Scotland (Baltimore, 1887), p. 21 n. 1Google Scholar. Fredericq, the Belgian historian and colleague of Henri Pirenne at Ghent, visited Oxford in 1884 as part of a comparative inquiry into the state of historical studies in various countries. While Fredericq's impressions were sometimes mistaken, his observations about foreign language illiteracy were repeated still in the early twentieth century by the history Honours Examiners.

⁸ Stubbs, William, ‘On the purposes and methods of historical study’, 15 May 1877, in Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects (Oxford, 1900), p. 86Google Scholar.

⁹ Ashley, W. J., letter to his future wife Annie, , in William James Ashley; a life…with a chapter by J. H. Muirhead, etc. (London, 1932), p. 33Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Pollock, Frederick, the Corpus professor of jurisprudence from 1883 to 1903, in An introduction to the history of the science of politics (London, 1890), p. 119Google Scholar. Pollock was specifically criticizing E. A. Freeman, but the same criticism might have been extended to most of the Oxford teachers, of history.

¹¹ Poole, R. L., ‘The teaching of palaeography and diplomatic’ in Essays on the teaching of history, ed. by Archbold, W. A. J. (Cambridge, 1901)Google Scholar; and Galbraith, V. J., ‘Diplomatic’, Oxford Magazine (1930), XLIX, 238Google Scholar.

¹² Round, J. Horace, preface to Peerage and pedigree (London, 1910), IXGoogle Scholar. See also Blaas, P. B. M., Continuity and anachronism: parliamentary and constitutional development in whig historiography and the anti-whig reaction between 1890 and 1930 (The Hague, 1978), pp. 260–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar; A. V. Dicey, 23 March 1911 to James Bryce in Bodl. Lib. MS Bryce 3, fo. 87; Burrows, Montague, Inaugural lecture (on the foundation of the Chichele professorship of modern history) (Oxford, 1868), p. 16Google Scholar; and Stubbs, William, ‘Address on the opening of a course of lectures in England under the Stewarts [sic]’ (18 10 1899), in Seventeen lectures, p. 465Google Scholar.

¹³ Woodward, E. L., Short journey, pp. 36, 41Google Scholar. See also H. W. C. Davis to T. F. Tout, Tout papers, the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 27 Sept. 1914.

¹⁴ Stubbs, William, ‘Inaugural’ (1867), in Seventeen lectures, p. 15Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Gladstone, William, Studies on Homer and the Homeric age, 30 vols. (Oxford, 1858)Google Scholar; Juventus Mundi: The gods and men of the heroic age (London, 1869)Google Scholar; and ‘Universities Hominium; on the unity of history’, North American Review, CXLV (1887)Google Scholar. See also Bryce, to Freeman, E. A., MS Bryce 9, fo. 107, 27 03 1867 and ‘The historical aspects of democracy’ in Essays on reform, p. 263 (London, 1867)Google Scholar; and Turner, Frank, The Greek heritage in Victorian Britain (New Haven, 1978), p. 263Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Stubbs, , Inaugural, p. 17Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Ashley, W. J., ‘The study of history at Oxford’, The Nation, LX, 1554 (1895), 294Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Tout, T. F., ‘The Manchester school of history’, university supplement to the Manchester Guardian (1920)Google Scholar, in The collected papers of T. F. Tout (Manchester University, 1932), I, 85Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Essays introductory to the study of constitutional history by resident members of the university, ed. Wakeman, H. O. and Hassall, A. (London, 1901Google Scholar, preface.

²⁰ Ashley, W. J., ‘The study of history at Oxford’, p. 275Google Scholar. When H. O. Wakeman suggested to the Modern History Board that a book of documents on all English constitutional history be substituted for the Select charters, he was defeated by 6 to 5, Bodl. Lib. Board of the Faculty of Arts (modern history) Minute Books, II, 2 May 1898, 67, The suggestion was never introduced again in the pre-war years.

²¹ Powicke, F. M., Historical study in Oxford, p. 168Google Scholar.

²² Ashley, W.J., ‘The study of history at Oxford’, p. 275Google Scholar. Marten, C. H. K., a Balliol student of Smith, A. L., Assistant Master and subsequently provost at Eton, who contributed ‘The teaching of history in the schools-practice’ to Essays on the teaching of history, included in the aims of teaching history: ‘It may and should provoke patriotism and enthusiasm: it should help to train the Citizen or the Statesman; its study should lead to right feeling and to right thinking’, p. 91Google Scholar.

²³ Bryce, James, ‘On the teaching of history in schools’, Historical Association Leaflet no. 4 (London, 1907), p. 3Google Scholar. See Medley's, D. J.A student's manual of constitutional history (1894)Google Scholar. Medley went from Oxford to the university of Glasgow, where he transformed the Scottish teaching of history into conformity with the Oxford model. Sanderson, Michael, Universities in the nineteenth century (London, 1975)Google Scholar. The Manual was reprinted in six editions until 1925.

²⁴ Fisher, H. A. L., An unfinished autobiography (Oxford, 1941), p. 63Google Scholar; Engel, Arthur J., From clergyman to don. The rise of the academic profession in nineteenth-century Oxford (Oxford, 1983)Google Scholar; and Rothblatt, Sheldon, Tradition and change in English liberal education. An essay in history and culture (London, 1976), p. 202Google Scholar.

²⁵ Firth, C. H., ‘The study of modern history in Great Britain’, Proceedings of the British Academy, VI (1913), 142Google Scholar.

²⁶ A. F. Pollard to his father, 22 and 29 Jan. 1911, in the MS collection of Pollard letters (1911–1914), Palaeography Room, University of London Library, the Senate House.

²⁷ For the first half of the nineteenth century see Rothblatt, Sheldon, ‘The student sub-culture and the examination system in early nineteenth century Oxbridge’, in Stone, Lawrence, (ed.), The university and society, vol. 1: Oxford and Cambridge from the 18th to the early 19th century (Princeton University Press, 1974), 302–3Google Scholar.

²⁸ Burrows, Montague, Inaugural, pp. 4–5Google Scholar.

²⁹ Rogers, J. Thorold, Education in Oxford: its methods, its aims and its rewards (London, 1861), P. 45Google Scholar.

³⁰ Gardiner, S. R., letter, in Herbert, Aubernon (ed.), The sacrifice of education to examinations: letters from all sorts and conditions of men (London, 1888), p. 77Google Scholar.

³¹ See letter by Fisher, H. A. L. in The sacrifice of education, p. 55Google Scholar.

³² Smith, A. L., ‘The teaching of modern history’, in Essays on secondary education edited by Cookson, Christopher (Oxford, 1898), pp. 282, 191Google Scholar.

³³ Smith, Goldwin, The reorganization of the university of Oxford (Oxford, 1868), pp. 3, 7Google Scholar.

³⁴ The only professor to serve as an examiner between the 1850s and 1900 was Stubbs, who examined a total of 506 students during the years 1865, 1866, 1871, 1872, 1873, 1874, 1877, 1878, 1882 and 1883. Among the tutors Arthur Johnson was an examiner in 1878, 1879, 1887, 1888, 1889, 1890, 1898, 1899 and 1900 of 1,076 students. Richard Lodge came next with a total of 750 students. Computer study, CSUN. There is no data available after 1900.

³⁵ Freeman, E. A., ‘Oxford after forty years, Contemporary Review, LI (1887), 618–20Google Scholar.

³⁶ Between the 1850s and 1900, all the outside examiners were Oxford graduates. Computer study, CSUN.

³⁷ Muir, Ramsay, The School of Modern History (a letter upon the working of the School) (Oxford, 1914), pp. 8–15Google Scholar.

³⁸ Modern history reports, II (Aug. 1913), 22, Bodleian Library.

³⁹ Committee on political science. Modern history reports, II (18 Nov. 1914). In Cambridge, during the war years, there were papers in the historical tripos set in general European history, political science, international law, political economy and the subjects for an essay that addressed themselves directly to the origins, morality and consequences of the war. Manchester had no question directly bearing on the war, although some of the general essay questions could have been answered in terms of contemporary events. In London, A. F. Pollard gave public lectures on ‘The war week by week’ at University College, for which he used special information from the War Office. Pollard, A. F. to his father, 17 Jan. and 1 Oct. 1916, P. L. (1915–1919)Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Smith, Goldwin, An inaugural lecture as regius professor of modern history, Nov. 1859 (Oxford, 1859). PP. 16, 27Google Scholar.

⁴¹ See Owen, Dorothy, ‘The Chichele professorship of modern history, 1862’, The Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, XXXV, 90 (11 1961), 217–20Google Scholar.

⁴² Burrows, M., Autobiography, ed. Burrows, Stephen Montague (London, 1908), p. 216Google Scholar. The electors were the Archbishop of Canterbury, Sumner; Lord John Russell; Lord Chancellor Bethell; Judge of the Admiralty Court, Dr Lushington; and the warden of All Souls, Dr Leighton.

⁴³ Burrows, , Antiquarianism and history. A lecture delivered before the university of Oxford, 26 May 1884 (Oxford, 1885), pp. 7–8Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Memo from the Earl of Carnarvon to the Derby-Disraeli cabinet and letter from H. L. Mansel to Carnarvon, 15 July 1866, quoted in Williams, N. J., ‘Stubbs's appointment as regius professor, 1866’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, XXXIII, 87 (05 1960), 123Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ Green, J. R., ‘Professor Stubbs's inaugural lecture’, Saturday Review, DXLII (2 03 1867), 279Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ Stubbs's, prefaces and notes to the Rolls series, charters and documents illustrative of English history (1870–1901), Sacrum Angicum (2858), Councils and ecclesiastical documents, ed. with Hadden, W. (1871–1878)Google Scholar, and the Ihnerarium Regis Ricardi (1865), were especially testimonies to meticulous comparative research. See also, ‘On the purposes and methods of historical study’, III.

⁴⁷ Stubbs, ‘On the present state and prospects of historical study’, 17 05 1986Google Scholar, in Seventeen Lectures, pp. 35–7.

⁴⁸ Stubbs, , ‘A last statutory public lecture’ (8 05 1884), in Seventeen lectures, pp. 442–3Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Stubbs, to Freeman, , in Letters of William Stubbs: bishop of Oxford, 1825–1901, ed. Hutton, W. J. (London, 1904), p. 264Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Fredericq, , The study of history in England and Scotland, p. 44Google Scholar.

⁵¹ Stubbs, , ‘On the present state and prospects of historical study’, pp. 53–4Google Scholar. See also Green, J. R., ‘Professor Stubbs's inaugural’, p. 268Google Scholar.

⁵² Stubbs, , ‘Inaugural’, p. 16Google Scholar. See also, ‘Address on the opening of a course of lectures on England under the Stewarts [sic]’, Seventeen lectures, pp. 465–8.

⁵³ Stubbs, , ‘On the purposes and methods of historical study’, p 95Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Stubbs, , ‘Inaugural’, p 27Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Maitland, F. W., ‘William Stubbs, bishop of Oxford’,English Historical Review, XVI (1901), 503CrossRefGoogle ScholarBryce, James was one of his few contemporanes to recognize the ‘underlying rigidity’ of Stubbs's opinions Undated letter from Bryce, to Hutton, W L (ed ), in Letters of William Stubbs p 92Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Freeman, E A., ‘The office of the historical professor’, in The methods of historical study eight lectures read in the university of Oxford in Michaelmas term, 1884 (London 1886), 36Google ScholarFreeman, understood ‘science’; as equivalent simply to ‘knowledge’ See Freeman, to Bryce, , Bryce, MS 7, fo 120, 3 02 1884Google Scholar, Bryce, , ‘E A Freeman’, Studies in contemporary biography (London, 1903) p. 281Google Scholar, Round's, H A L. Horace famous article in the Quarterly Review (07 1892)Google Scholar attacking Freeman for neglecting primary sources

⁵⁷ Freeman, , ‘Historical study at Oxford’, Bentley's Quarterly Review, 1 (1859), 295Google Scholar, and ‘The office of the historical professor’, 8

⁵⁸ Burrow, J W, A liberal descent Victorian historians and the English past (Cambridge, 1981), p 165CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Blaas, , Continuity and anachronism, p 188Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Fisher, H A L, ‘Modern historians and their methods’, p 805Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Burrow, J. A., A liberal descent, p. 157Google Scholar.

⁶¹ ‘I confess my ignorance of Egyptian history: only is there anything to be ignorant of…?’ Freeman to Bryce, MS Bryce 6, fo. 31, 20 Apr. 1873. See Bryce, , ‘E. A. Freeman’, in Studies in contemporary biography (New York, 1923), 26304Google Scholar; 288 and A. V. Dicey to Bryce, MS Bryce 2, fo. 133, 23 Mar. 1892.

⁶² James Tait, when an undergraduate at Balliol, had found Freeman unbearable. Tait, Notebook and diaries, May 1886, in Tait papers, the John Rylands University Library of Manchester.

⁶³ Freeman, , preface to The methods of historical study, p. vGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁴ Oman, Charles, ‘History at Oxford’, p. 237Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ Paul, Herbert, The life of Froude (London, 1905), p. 412Google Scholar.

⁶⁶ Charles Firth to T. F. Tout, 10 Apr. 1892 and R. L. Poole to Tout. 30 Apr. 1892, in Tout papers.

⁶⁷ Froude, , The science of history, a lecture delivered at the Royal Institution on Feb. 5, 1864 (London, 1886), p. 35Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ See esp. Froude, , Oceana, or England and her colonies (London, 1886), p. 10Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ Fisher, , ‘Modern historians and their methods’, p 804 Froude had recommended that history be taught from collections of statutes, parliamentary petitions, proclamatory addresses and contemporary accounts of state trialsGoogle Scholar

⁷⁰ Froude, , ‘Suggestions on the best means of teaching English history’, in Oxford essays Contributed by members of the university (London, 1855), pp 70–4Google Scholar and 75

⁷¹ ‘Obituary’, Oxford Magazine, 18 May 1904 See too Fisher, H A L, Unfinished autobiography, P 57Google Scholar

⁷² Powell's, only scholarly publication was an edition of the Icelandic saga, The Corpus Pueticum Boreale (1881)Google Scholar, done in collaboration with the Icelandic scholar Grubrand Vigfusson The Ongines Icelandicae, also written with Vigfusson, was published in 1908 after Powell's death Firth found Powell unstable and conspicuously wanting in ‘business capacity’ Firth to Tout, Tout papers, 25 Nov 1894

⁷³ Powell, , ‘Inaugural lecture’, Oxford Chronicle 1 05 1895Google Scholar, reprinted in a condensed version in The Academy, 1201 (11 May 1895), 401–2 Elton, Oliver, Frederick York Powell – A life and a selection from his letters and occasional writings I Memoir and letters (Oxford, 1906), 195Google Scholar, and Oman, Charles, Memories of Victorian Oxford and of some early years (London 1941), p 206Google Scholar, and ‘History at Oxford’, 242–6 Powell himself never expected to succeed as regius professor Powell to Tout, Tout papers, (1894)

⁷⁴ For some of Firth's, failures on the Modern History Board see The minority report for Oxford curriculum reform (Oxford, 1892)Google Scholar, written by Firth and Tout, Firth's letters to Tout, and the papers of the Modern History Board

⁷⁵ Firth to Tout, Tout papers (13 Mar. 1892).

⁷⁶ Firth, , A plea far the historical teaching of history, pp. 21–2Google Scholar; 30.

⁷⁷ A letter to the regius professor (Oxford, 1905), pp. 4–8Google Scholar. The plea, the tutor's letter, and Firth's, reply are collected in An historic controversy, 1904–05 (Oxford, 1905)Google Scholar.

⁷⁸ Memorandum on the organization of advanced historical teaching in Oxford (12 Jun e 1908).

⁷⁹ Oman, Charles, ‘Inaugural’, in Lectures on the study of history (Oxford, 1906), pp. 23–4Google Scholar.

⁸⁰ Oman, , ‘History at Oxford’, pp. 254–5Google Scholar.

⁸¹ Oman, , Memories of Victorian Oxford, p. 268Google Scholar. See also ‘Some Notes on Professor Burrows and All Souls College’, in Burrows's, Autobiography, esp. p. 254Google Scholar.

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⁸³ Southern, Richard W., The shape and substance of academic history (Oxford, 1960), pp. 17–18Google Scholar.

⁸⁴ Myres, J. L., The provision of historical studies at Oxford surveyed in a letter to the president of the American Historical Association on the occasion of its meeting in California, 1915 (Oxford, 1915), p. 6Google Scholar.

⁸⁵ His students included three regius professors at Oxford: Maurice Powicke, H. W. C. Davis and V. H. Galbraith; a regius professor at Cambridge, G. N. Clark; the prominent historians A. G. Little, Ernest Barker and Lewis Namier; C. H. K. Marten of Eton and John O'Regan of Marlborough; Richard Lodge, Ramsay Muir, F. D. Ackland, R. C. K. Ensor, R. H. Tawney, G. D. H. Cole and such great statesmen as Curzon, Elgin, Milner and Herbert Samuel. See Smith, M. F., Arthur Lionel Smith, Master of Balliol, 1916–24; a biography and some reminiscences, by his wife (London, 1928)Google Scholar; and by his daughter, Rowy Mitchison, ‘An Oxford family’, privately printed, in A. L. Smith papers.

⁸⁶ The view of Smith as only a tutor was held by Fisher, H. A. L., Unfinished autobiography, p. 85Google Scholar, and by Barker, Ernest, Age and youth, pp. 328–9Google Scholar. For an opposing view see Marten, C. H. K., On the teaching of history and other addresses (Oxford, 1938), p. 34Google Scholar.

⁸⁷ Galbraith, , quoted in Hartley, , ‘Successors to Jowett’ p. 242Google Scholar. See also Powicke, ibid. p. 240.

⁸⁸ Smith, A. L., ‘The teaching of modern history’, pp. 178, 192Google Scholar.

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⁹¹ Firth, C. H., The faculties and their powers. A contribution to the history of university organization (Oxford, 1909), p. 12Google Scholar.

⁹² For a complete list of professors, readers and lecturers see the Historical register of 1900 (Oxford, 1900)Google Scholar and the Supplement of 1901–30.

⁹³ There were two classes of members: 16 chosen from those reading in the Honours School of Modern History, and 10 elected from those who had taken an honours degree in the School. Three regular meetings were held each term in which one paper would generally be read and discussed. The Oxford historical seminar (rules) (Oxford, 1882)Google Scholar.

⁹⁴ Tait papers. Notebooks and diaries, 31 May 1886.

⁹⁵ Stubbs Society, Minute Books, II, 1894–1898Google Scholar; 6 Mar. 1896, 28–9; 7 May 1897, 56, the Bodleian Library, 1884–1930.

⁹⁶ Within the colleges, Balliol had its own History Club in the 1880s, and in 1907 it existed again under F. F. Urquhart's leadership. Christ Church had a historical society, too. See too the Society for the Study of Social Ethics (renamed the Social Science Club in 1897); the Burke Society; the Oxford University Branch of the Christian Social Union; the Cabinet Club, the Edward Lhuyd Society; and the Oxford Economic Society. Miscellaneous papers, 1889–1914Google Scholar, Bodleian Library.

⁹⁷ In 1897 boards of faculties were given authority to direct B.Litt. candidates; in 1907 a supervisor was paid to perform this function; in 1908 the B.Litt. degree in modern history came under the control of a standing committee composed of the regius professor and four members, elected by the Board of Modern History for a term of two years and eligible for re-election. Modern History Reports, 1, 53, 6 Mar. 1908. By April 1909, after three years of deliberation, the board established criteria for the D.Litt. which required publications from the candidates to be judged by at least two judges appointed by the board for each particular case. Modern History, 1, 42, 17 Feb. 1906 and 28 Apr. 1909.

⁹⁸ Firth, , The principle of the M.A. statute (Oxford, 1909), 1Google Scholar. See also Notes, Committee for advanced historical teaching, 6 Jan. 1909–13; and Modern history reports, 1, 1909, 70.

⁹⁹ See Biggar, H. P., ‘On the establishment of a graduate school at Oxford’, University Review (London) (05 1906), pp. 111–32Google Scholar; and Modern history reports, II, 71, 12 June 1917. Firth, , Modern history in Oxford, 1841–1918 (Oxford, 1920), p. 51Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁰ Southern, Richard W., The shape and substance of academic history, p. 5Google Scholar. Of the 8 or 9 subjects required for success in the new examinations for the Home, Indian and Ceylon Civil Services which came into effect in 1892, anyone who took classical moderations, and then the Final Honours School in history would be completely prepared. By 1917 the new Class I examination for the Civil Service assumed that it was essential for anyone in an influential position in government to understand historial methods and sources, the relationship between geography and history, and some European history. Report of the royal commission on the civil service (1917), pp. 22–3.

¹⁰¹ Smith, A. L., ‘The teaching of modern history’, 150Google Scholar.

¹⁰² McClelland, Charles F., The German historians and England (Cambridge University Press, 1970, P. 236Google Scholar.

¹⁰³ Charles Firth thought Froude's appointment as regius professor ‘simply an enormity and the greatest possible discouragement to the study of history here’ and R. L. Poole confided to Tout that ‘many of us were keen upon a public protest’. Firth to Tout, 10 Apr. 1892 and Poole to Tout, 30 Apr. 1892. Tout papers.

¹⁰⁴ Hunt, William, The history of England from the accession of George the III to the close of Pitt's first administration (1760–1801) (London, 1924), esp. pp. 328–9Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁵ Broderick, George D. (completed and revised by Fotheringham, J. K.), The history of England from Addington's administration to the close of William IV's reign (1801–1837) (London, 1906), pp. 307, 342Google Scholar.

* The Modern Association's minute books were kindly made available to me by Harry Pitt, Fellow of Worcester and secretary of the history faculty.