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Raleigh, Sir Walter Alexander, 1861-1922, Knight, critic and essayist |
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Biographical Information |
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Occupation, Sphere of Activity |
Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh was born at 4 Highbury Quadrant, London, 5 September 1861. After a short time at the City of London School, he was sent in 1876, to Edinburgh Academy. On his return to London in 1877, he attended University College School, whence he proceeded to University College, London, graduating B.A. in 1881, before entering King's College, Cambridge, in October of that year. In the autumn of 1885, Raleigh went out to India on being appointed the first Professor of English literature in the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College, Aligarh, but he was invalided home in April 1887, and forbidden by his doctors to return. During the winter of 1888-1889, he lectured at Oxford University, and in March 1889, became personal assistant to Professor (Sir) Adolphus William Ward at the Victoria University, Manchester. In November 1889, he was appointed Professor of modern literature at University College, Liverpool, in succession to A. C. Bradley. At Liverpool Raleigh played a spirited part in college affairs, at a time when the college was developing into the university; and he began to write, most notably The English Novel (his first novel), Robert Louis Stevenson: An Essay, and Style. He was Clark lecturer in English literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1899, and incorporated his lectures into his book, Milton, his first substantial study of a poet. His appointment in 1889 had been a risk, but by 1900, he was winning recognition as the most original and stimulating of the younger critics. In June 1900, Raleigh was appointed to the chair of English language and literature at Glasgow University, again in succession to A. C. Bradley, and for the next four years was one of the outstanding personalities there. As a member of the university court he was involved in academic affairs to an extent which those who knew his apparent indifference to them in later years would not have credited. Daily lectures to hundreds of students and continual meetings left him less time for writing than he had enjoyed at Liverpool. Having been consulted by the publishing firm of MacLehose, of Glasgow, about their projected series of English voyages, Raleigh promised an essay for their edition of Richard Hakluyt's Voyages. This was published under the title of The English Voyages of the Sixteenth Century 1905, and more than once he said that it was his best book. In June 1904, Raleigh became the first holder of the new chair of English literature at Oxford, with a fellowship at Magdalen College. The school of English language and literature had been established in 1894, but its steady development began with Raleigh's appointment. He was more interested in men than in movements or theories. Yet he taught the continuity of literature and maintained that the English school at Oxford must be a school of the history of English literature and language. An important part of his work at Oxford was done as adviser to the Clarendon Press.His usual method as a lecturer was informal, with the reading of passages, and a running commentary. Much depended on his mood at the time, but when he was at his best no student forgot the impression he had made. Believing that system and dogma are not trusty servants in the study of literature, he invited his listeners to read and think for themselves. His audience contained men of all ages. In 1907, he welcomed the relaxation offered by a voyage to South Africa, although during his two months there he lectured at Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban, Grahamstown, Cape Town, and Stellenbosch. In 1910, he brought out his Six Essays on Johnson. This was his last book on a single author, and there are many critics who consider it his best. Raleigh had never overrated the importance of the academic study of literature, and from his first years at Oxford, and even earlier, he had an increasing desire to write on men and things directly. In October 1914, when his Oxford professorship was reconstituted as the Merton chair of English literature, he became a fellow of Merton College. After the outbreak of the The First World War in 1914, Raleigh had no heart for further literary criticism. The war occupied his thoughts for the rest of his life. In 1918, his England and the War was published, the main subject of which is the English character. In 1915, he went to the United States of America in order to deliver at Princeton the two lectures were based on old material, about England and the War. His introduction to Shakespeare's England, 1916, a book which he had planned many years earlier, is a glorification of the Elizabethan spirit and ends on a patriotic note. He found a new interest in his lectures at Oxford after 1918, when men who had fought in the War crowded to hear him, and at no time was he more sought after by the younger members of the university. These post-War years were busy, for in July 1918, he had accepted the invitation of the Air Ministry to write the official history of the Royal Air Force, although he only managed to complete the first volume before his death. On 16 March 1922, Raleigh set out for the East in preparation for his second volume. When he returned to London on 25 April 1922, he was in the grip of typhoid fever, contracted when his aeroplane was marooned for four or five days in the desert between Jerusalem and Bagdad. He died at the Acland Home, Oxford, 13 May1922. He was buried at Ferry Hinksey, the village near Oxford where he had lived since 1909. |
Relationships |
Raleigh was the fifth child and only son of Alexander Raleigh, then Congregationalist minister of Hare Court chapel, Canonbury, by his wife, Mary Darling, only daughter of James Gifford, of Edinburgh. Raleigh married in 1890, Lucie Gertrude, only daughter of Mason Jackson, art editor of the Illustrated London News, and had four sons and one daughter. |
Other Significant Information |
Notable publications: The English Novel, ( Robert Louis Stevenson: an Essay, ( Style, ( Milton, ( Wordsworth, ( Johnson on Shakespeare, ( Six Essays on Johnson, ( The War in the Air, ( |
Honours, Qualifications and Appointments |
1881: B.A. University College, London 1885-1887: Professor of English literature in the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College, Aligarh, India 1889-1900: Professor of modern literature, University College, Liverpool, 1900-1904: Professor of English language and literature, Glasgow University 1904: Professor of English literature, Oxford University 1907: Leslie Stephen Lecturer at Trinity College, Cambridge 1911: Knighthood 1911: Clark lecturer at Trinity College, Cambridge 1912: Honorary Fellow of King's College, Oxford 1914: Fellow of Merton College, Oxford 1916: Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford |
Notes |
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Author and Date of Biographical History |
Personal name authority record compiled for the GASHE project by |