Sir Arthur Bryant, CH, (18 February 1899 - 22 January 1985), was a widely popular British historian, and columnist for the Illustrated London News. His reputation since his death has suffered as allegations about a number of controversial episodes in his life have been made public. The letter Ch is a letter in Chamorro, Czech, and Slovak alphabet. ... February 18 is the 49th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1899 (MDCCCXCIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... January 22 is the 22nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the year. ... The Illustrated London News was a magazine founded by Herbert Ingram and his friend Mark Lemon, the editor of Punch magazine. ...

Arthur Bryant was the son of Sir Francis Morgan Bryant, a court official in the household of the then Prince of Wales. He was born in Dersingham, Norfolk, near Sandringham and went to Harrow School. Dersingham is a village in Norfolk, England. ... Norfolk (pronounced IPA: ) is a low-lying county in East Anglia in the east of southern England. ... Sandringham can refer to: The village in Norfolk, United Kingdom Sandringham House in the aforementioned village The Sandringham Time system The suburb of Melbourne, Australia The railway line in Melbourne The railway station in Melbourne at the end of the aforementioned line This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid... Harrow School Crest Harrow School is a British public school, located in Harrow on the Hill in North West London. ...

Early work on Pepys

His early reputation was made by books on Samuel Pepys; it has been suggested that he gave insufficient credit in them to the scholarly work of another, Joseph Robson Tanner (1860-1931), upon which Andrew Roberts claims they were largely based (see his account given in Eminent Churchillians). Samuel Pepys Samuel Pepys, FRS (23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament. ... Andrew Roberts is a conservative UK historian. ...

J. H. Plumb gives this account (The Making of an Historian I p. 275), of how G. M. Trevelyan passed Tanner's notes to Bryant: Sir John Harold Plumb (1911 – 21 October 2001), known as Jack, was a British historian, known for his books on British eighteenth century history. ... George Macaulay Trevelyan (February 16, 1876 – July 21, 1962), was an English historian, son of Sir George Otto Trevelyan and great-nephew of Thomas Macaulay. ...

... he found Bryant's book [on Charles II] convincing and, equally exciting for Trevelyan, beautifully written. [...] Trevelyan thought Arthur Bryant ideal for the job (he quickly accepted the task) and the notes were handed over. The notes reached 1689 and so did Bryant's biography; the last decade of Pepys's life went unrecorded.

1930s

In the late 1930s he was noted for his efforts in the organisation of historical pageants. He was involved in an effort, not highly successful, to found a National Book Association, as a right-wing counter to the Left Book Club. Subsequently several of his books were published by the newly-established Right Book Club. A beauty contest, or beauty pageant, is a competition between people, based largely, though not always entirely, on the beauty of their physical appearance. ... In politics, right-wing, the political right, or simply the right, are terms which refer, with no particular precision, to the segment of the political spectrum in opposition to left-wing politics. ... The Left Book Club, founded in 1936, was a key left-wing institution of the late 1930s and 1940s in the United Kingdom. ...

German contacts and the war years

It is also alleged that he had close contacts with Nazi Germany, in 1939. According to the Spartacus web page on him, The term National Socialism has been used in self-description by a number of different political groups and ideologies, some of which have no connection with the Nazis; see National socialism (disambiguation). ...

Bryant developed extreme right-wing views and in April 1939 he travelled to Nazi Germany with Major-General John Fuller and Lord Brocket to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of Adolf Hitler.

It is further said, for example by Andrew Roberts, that even after the outbreak of World War II his German contacts continued. It is claimed that although these were discovered by the British government, Bryant was not prosecuted. Roberts claims that his production of several patriotic books at this time was effectively a smokescreen. J.F.C. Fuller (September 1, 1878 – February 10, 1966), full name John Frederick Charles Fuller, was a British Major General, military historian and strategist, notable as an early theorist of modern armoured warfare, including categorising principles of warfare. ... (Arthur) Ronald Nall Nall-Cain, 2nd Baron Brocket (August 4, 1904–March 24, 1967) was a Conservative politician in the United Kingdom. ... Combatants Allies: Poland, British Commonwealth, France/Free France, Soviet Union, United States, China, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, and others Casualties Military dead:17 million Civilian dead:33 million Total dead:50 million Military dead:8 million Civilian dead:4 million Total dead:12 million World War II...

1950s

He later edited the Alanbrooke diaries, in a way that has been considered to be slanted against Winston Churchill. A complete edition is now available, for comparison. Statue of Field Marshal The Viscount Alanbrooke, MoD Building, Whitehall, London Field Marshal Alan Francis Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke, KG, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO (July 23, 1883 - June 17, 1963) was a British Field Marshal during World War II. He also served as Lord High Constable during the coronation of... The Rt Hon. ...

1960s

He remained a successful writer all his life (see publications below). Sir Arthur Bryant was the Guest-of-Honour at the Conservative Monday Club's 1966 Annual Dinner, his speech being on the subject of "The Preservation of our National Character". The dinner, at the Savoy Hotel, was sold out. The Conservative Monday Club (widely known as The Monday Club) is a British right-wing pressure-group with its origins in the Conservative Party. ... This article is about the Savoy Hotel in London. ...

He was knighted, and made a Companion of Honour. J. H. Plumb writes (The Making of an Historian I p. 276) The Order of the Companions of Honour is a British and Commonwealth Order (decoration). ...

Both of his public honours, his Knighthood and his C.H., were given to him by Harold Wilson, whose favourite historian he had long been.

James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, PC (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was one of the most prominent and successful British politicians of the 20th Century. ...

Later work

Of his 1980 book, The Elizabethan Experience, the historian Dame Veronica Wedgwood, O.M., said: Dame Cicely Veronica Wedgwood OM DBE (July 20, 1910–9 March 1997), known as Veronica Wedgwood, was a British historian. ...

There is not a dull moment in this splendid book. Once again Sir Arthur, a Scheherazade among historians, has broken off the story when we long to hear more.

Also, Earl Attlee, K.G., O.M., said: Earl Attlee is a title in the hereditary peerage of the United Kingdom created on 16 December 1955, along with the title Viscount Prestwood, of Walthamstow in the County of Essex, for the former Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Clement Attlee. ...

...as in all your historical works, you throw a bright light on the past. As a lover of history and of England I can enjoy your writing more than that of any living historian. You carry on a great tradition.

Lastly, the New York Times stated: The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ...

...a master craftsman. The sureness with which he moves through his material, the skill with which he chooses the detail, his ability to marshal the facts into a suspenseful narrative, all proclaim the top-drawer historian. (Citations from the dust-jacket).

Reputation and studies

J. H. Plumb wrote (The Making of an Historian I p. 276):

What Bryant longed for, his one abiding disappointment of life, was professional recognition. He would have given anything for an Hon. D. Litt at Cambridge, perhaps more for a Fellowship of the British Academy. He never had the slightest chance of either. [...] Bryant of course had gifts. He wrote far better than nearly all professional historians. [...] He over-wrote certainly, and there was often a note of falsity, even of vulgarity, but largely his failure was of intellect.

Plumb's verdict is that Bryant killed off 'patrician history': The British Academy is the United Kingdoms national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. ...

Like Churchill, but unlike Trevelyan, Bryant inflated patrician history so much that he destroyed it. Indeed he vulgarised it to a degree that made it incredible.

Plumb cites Trevelyan's possible heirs as Wedgwood and A. L. Rowse. A. L. Rowse ( December 4, 1903 – October 3, 1997) was a British historian best known for his poetry about Cornwall and his work on Elizabethan England. ...

Another detractor is the British historian Andrew Roberts, who gave this, his personal verdict: Andrew Roberts is a conservative UK historian. ...

Bryant was in fact a Nazi sympathiser and fascist fellow-traveller, who only narrowly escaped internment as a potential traitor in 1940. He was also, incidentally, a supreme toady, fraudulent scholar and humbug.

Roberts's polemical essay, prompted by the opening of archive material on Bryant, has been followed by a full academic study by Julia Stapleton. Bryant's first biographer was Pamela Street, a neighbour in Salisbury and historical collaborator, and daughter of the farmer-author A. G. Street. Salisbury (pronounced Solsbree or Sauls-bree) is a small cathedral city in Wiltshire, England. ...

Works

• The Spirit of Conservatism (1929)
• King Charles the Second (1931)
• Macaulay (1932)
• Life of Samuel Pepys in three volumes: The Man in the Making, The Years of Peril, The Saviour of the Navy (1933)
• The Man and the Hour (1934)
• The Letters Speeches and Declarations of King Charles II (1935), editor
• The England of Charles II (1935), later Restoration England
• Postman's Horn, An Anthology of the Letters of Latter Seventeenth Century England (1936), editor
• The American Ideal (1936)
• George V (1936)
• Stanley Baldwin: A Tribute (1937)
• English Saga 1840–1940 (1940)
• The Years of Endurance 1793–1802 (1942)
• Dunkirk (A memorial) (1943), pamphlet
• Years of Victory (1944)
• The Battle of Britain. The Few (1944), with Edward Shanks
• Historian's Holiday (1946), Dropmore Press
• Trafalgar and Alamein (1948), with Edward Shanks and Field Marshal The Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
• The Summer of Dunkirk and The Great Miracle (1948), with Edward Shanks
• The Story of England: Makers of the Realm (1953)
• The Age of Elegance 1812–1822 (1954)
• The Turn of the Tide 1939–1943 (1957), Alanbrooke diaries
• Triumph In The West 1943–1946 (1959), Alanbrooke diaries
• Liquid History (1960), fifty years of the Port of London Authority
• Jimmy, the Dog of My Life (1960)
• The Age of Chivalry (1963)
• The Medieval Foundation of England (1965)
• The Fire and the Rose: Dramatic Moments in British History (1966)
• The Lion and the Unicorn: Historian's Testament (1969)
• Jackets of Green. A Study of the History, Philosophy and Character of the Rifle Brigade (1972)
• Leeds Castle — a Brief History (1980), Leeds Castle Foundation.
• Set in a Silver Sea: A History of Britain and the British People, Vol 1
• The Elizabethan Deliverance, Collins, London, 1980, ISBN 0-00-216207-5

Edward Richard Buxton Shanks (1892 – 1953) was an English writer, known as a war poet of World War I, then as an academic and journalist, and literary critic and biographer. ... Edward Richard Buxton Shanks (1892 – 1953) was an English writer, known as a war poet of World War I, then as an academic and journalist, and literary critic and biographer. ... Bernard Law Montgomery Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, KG, GCB, DSO, PC (17 November 1887–24 March 1976) was a British Army officer, often referred to as Monty. He won the Battle of El Alamein, a major turning point in World War II, and... Edward Richard Buxton Shanks (1892 – 1953) was an English writer, known as a war poet of World War I, then as an academic and journalist, and literary critic and biographer. ... Statue of Field Marshal The Viscount Alanbrooke, MoD Building, Whitehall, London Field Marshal Alan Francis Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke, KG, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO (July 23, 1883 - June 17, 1963) was a British Field Marshal during World War II. He also served as Lord High Constable during the coronation of... Statue of Field Marshal The Viscount Alanbrooke, MoD Building, Whitehall, London Field Marshal Alan Francis Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke, KG, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO (July 23, 1883 - June 17, 1963) was a British Field Marshal during World War II. He also served as Lord High Constable during the coronation of... The Port of London lies along the banks of the River Thames in London, England. ... The front of Leeds Castle Leeds Castle Leeds Castle, four miles west of Maidstone, Kent, England, dates back to 1119, though a manor house stood on the same site from the 9th century. ...

References

• J. H. Plumb (1988) The Making of an Historian, I, Ch. VIII, 'The Last Patricians'
• Pamela Street (1979) Arthur Bryant: Portrait of a Historian
• Andrew Roberts (1994), Patriotism: The Last Refuge of Sir Arthur Bryant in Eminent Churchillians
• Julia Stapleton (2005) Sir Arthur Bryant and National History in Twentieth-Century Britain

Sir John Harold Plumb (1911 – 21 October 2001), known as Jack, was a British historian, known for his books on British eighteenth century history. ... Andrew Roberts is a conservative UK historian. ...

External link

• Spartacus page