Research Training in the Humanities in British Universities, c.1870–1939: Classical Studies, History, Philosophy

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Abstract Between the late-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries the idea of the research university gained acceptance in Britain, but the development of research training in the humanities was slow and patchy. It attracted little State interest or funding. The PhD, introduced as a standard postgraduate qualification after the First World War, did not become a requirement for an academic career in the humanities for another half-century. How, then, did British academics acquire the expertise needed to advance knowledge, in a world of learning transformed by the achievements of European university scholarship and by access to new archival and archaeological source material? Some insight can be gained from the series of memoirs of Fellows published by the British Academy. The experience of individuals, how it might vary between disciplines and over time are issues explored here through the memoirs of a sample of FBAs representing classical studies, history, and philosophy who died between 1930 and 1970. The main focus is on change, or the limitations of change, in practices at the ancient English Universities: the great majority of Academicians were Cambridge or Oxford graduates, although their careers took them to professorial chairs across the expanding range of universities in the United Kingdom. FBA memoirs suggest that shifting perspectives on the German university paradigm help to explain the uneven development of research training and to reinforce commitment to a distinctively English idea of the university and academic style.