no words should mark his passing from this world. For a man who promoted the careers of so many pupils it seems especially sad that he left orders that none should attend.
This book is an attempt to explore the reasons for these dramatic changes of fortune, and to examine the significance of his lasting literary and historical legacy. It also attempts to explain how the man who inspired and charmed so many, infuriated and offended so many others, and why, in consequence, that legacy is as controversial and questionable to some as it is considerable and undeniable to others.
The isolated headstone, which marks his unattended burial spot in its neglected country churchyard, may symbolize his lonely and miserable end, but in the libraries of the world his work lives on in his still sparkling and memorable prose. And many have judged that his ultimate legacy lives on in the form of the many other books alongside his own, written by his many flourishing pupils, some of whom have gone on to match or perhaps even surpass his remarkable achievements as a communicator and populariser of serious academic history.
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This book is not a conventional biography of Jack Plumb. Even less is it an academic critique of Plumb’s publications. His books are all freely available in the libraries of the world. They can largely be left to speak for themselves. Their author, however, has mainly remained hidden from public scrutiny and this book is designed to lift the veil on an extraordinary character who lived an extraordinary life. It is a very personal memoir and personal memoirs are by definition a collection of memories recorded by one individual from their knowledge of another.
This memoir is inevitably based to a large extent on my own memories, although the story it tells is reinforced by those of many of my friends and colleagues. I make no apology, therefore, if my part of the story seems to some to be disproportionately large. In consequence it can be read in some senses simply as the story of the changing nature of a close friendship between two Cambridge academics that lasted over fifty years.
Its main intention is to do for Plumb what George Otto Trevelyan did for that earlier great historian Macaulay when he wrote “there must be tens of thousands whose interest in history and literature he has awakened and informed by his pen, and who would gladly know what manner of man has done them so great a service”. In identifying and describing “what manner of man” Jack Plumb was, it also attempts to put into perspective his academic rivalries, his personal ambitions, his prolific publications, his major role as a editor, his inspiring role as teacher, his role as a promoter of his remarkable school of famous pupils, his role as a war-time code breaker and his achievement as a Master of a Cambridge college.
Most of all it attempts to paint a portrait of a remarkable individual who did so much to change the nature and direction of travel of popular academic history, and seeks to explain why he provoked so much interest and so much controversy amongst novelists, portrait painters, fellow historians and Cambridge colleagues. It depicts a man who climbed very high from very lowly beginnings, but also alas a man who ended his life as a sad, lonely and embittered individual.
2. J.H.Plumb’s Curriculum Vitae
B.A. (London), M.A., Ph.D., Litt.D. (Cambridge), FRHistS., FBA., FSA., FRSL., Hon. Litt.D. (Leicester, East Anglia, Bowdoin College, Southern California, Westminster College, Washington University, St. Louis, Bard College, New York), Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Honorary Member of the Society of American Historians, Honorary Member of American Historical Association.
Education:
Alderman Newton’s Boys School, 1923-30
University College Leicester, 1930-33
B.A. (London) 1st Class Honours in History 1933
Cambridge University 1934-2001
Ph.D. (Cambridge) 1936
Litt.D. (Cambridge) 1957
College Career:
Christ’s College, Cambridge, matriculated October 1934
Ehrmann Research Fellow, King’s College, Cambridge, 1939-46
Christ’s College, Cambridge, 1946-2001
Fellow, 1946-2001
Steward, 1948-50
Director of Studies 1949-66
Tutor, 1950-59
Vice-Master, 1964-68
Master, 1978-82
University Career:
University Lecturer in History, 1946-62
Reader in Modern English History, 1962-66
Chairman of the History Faculty, 1966-68
Professor of Modern English History, 1966-74
War-time Career:
Foreign Office, Bletchley 1940-45
Honours and Appointments:
Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, 1970
Honorary Member of the Society of American History, 1976
Honorary Member of American Historical Association, 1981
Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, 1961-82
Syndic of the Fitzwilliam Museum, 1960-77
Trustee of the Fitzwilliam Museum, 1985-92
Member of the Wine Standards Board, 1973-75
Elector of the Wolfson Prize for History, 1974-86
Fellow of the British Academy, 1968-2001
Member of the Council of the British Academy, 1977-80
Chairman of the Centre of East Anglian Studies, 1979-82
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, 1969
Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, 1969
Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, 1969
Visiting Professor at Columbia University, New York, 1960
Distinguished Visiting Professor NYC University, 1971-72
Distinguished Visiting Professor NYC University, 1976
Charles & Ida Green Honours Chair, Texas Christian University, 1974
Distinguished Visiting Professor, Washington University, 1977
Knighthood, 1982
Lectures:
Ford Lectures, University of Oxford, 1965-66
Saposnekov Lectures City College, New York, 1968
Guy Stanton Ford Lecture, University of Minnesota, 1966
The Stenton Lecture, University of Reading, 1977
George Rogers Clark Lecture, Society of Cincinnati, 1977
Honorary Degrees:
Hon. D.Litt. University of Leicester 1968
Hon. D.Litt. University of East Anglia 1977
Hon. D.Litt. Bowdoin College, U.S.A. 1974
Hon. D.Litt. University of Southern California 1978
Hon. D.Litt. Westminster College, U.S.A. 1983
Hon. D.Litt. Washington University, St. Louis 1983
Hon. D.Litt. Bard College, New York 1988
Editing:
Editor of the History of Human Society, 1957-1978
Editor of the Fontana History of Europe, 1957-1997
Senior Editor of American Heritage, 1957-1982
Historical Advisor, Penguin Books, 1960-91
Editor of Pelican Social History of Britain, 1982-91
Editor