All My Road Before Me

by C. S. Lewis

  HAMILTON-JENKIN, Alfred Kenneth (1900–80) matriculated at University College in 1919 and took a BA and a B.Litt. degree. He came from a family closely connected with the mines and miners of Cornwall since the eighteenth century. This was to remain a special interest all his life. After leaving Oxford he became a distinguished writer about Cornish mines and other aspects of his beloved Cornwall. His first book, The Cornish Mines, was published in 1927 and remains the standard work. His other works include Cornish Seafarers, Cornwall and the Cornish, Cornish Homes and Customs, and The Story of Cornwall, all written in the 1930s. These were followed by numerous articles and books, including Cornwall and Its People (1945) and News from Cornwall (1951). Mr Hamilton-Jenkin assisted in the formation of Old Cornwall societies, and he took a large part in setting up the Cornwall County Record Office, which is one of the finest in the country.

  HARDIE, William Francis Ross (1902–) is one of the sons of W. R. Hardie, Professor of Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. He was educated at Balliol College, and became a Fellow by Examination of Magdalen College in 1925. He was a Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 1926–50, and President of Corpus Christi College 1950–69. His published works include A Study in Plato (1936) and Aristotle’s Ethical Theory (1968). W. F. R. Hardie is not to be confused with his brother, Colin Hardie, who is not mentioned in the diary. Both were friends of C. S. Lewis, and Colin Hardie was a Fellow and the Classical Tutor at Magdalen College during 1936–73.

  HARWOOD, Cecil (1898–1975) had been at Highgate School, London, with Owen Barfield. He came up to Oxford in 1919 and read Classics at Christ Church. He and Owen Barfield attended an Anthroposophical conference in 1923 at which Rudolf Steiner spoke, and it was there that Harwood met his future wife, Daphne Olivier, who was already an Anthroposophist. He met Rudolf Steiner in 1924 and in 1925 he married Daphne Olivier. This same year he and his wife took a leading part in setting up the first Rudolf Steiner school in England, Michael Hall School at Streatham, where he was a teacher. He was Chairman of the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain 1937–74. His published works include The Way of a Child, an Introduction to the Work of Rudolf Steiner for Children (1940), The Recovery of Man in Childhood (1958) and Shakespeare’s Prophetic Mind (1964). There is a pleasing portrait of him in chapter XIII of Surprised by Joy.

  KEIR, Sir David Lindsay (1895–1973) was born in Scotland, a son of the manse. He was educated at Glasgow University, after which he served with the King’s Own Scottish Borderers 1915–19. He went up to New College, Oxford, after demobilisation and took a First in Modern History in 1921. He was Praelector in Modern History at University College, Oxford, 1921–39. Between 1939–49 he was President and Vice-Chancellor of the Queen’s University, Belfast. Under him Queen’s successfully completed the first major phase of postwar development and he left the University very strong. He was Master of Balliol College, Oxford, 1949–65. He was not in sympathy with some recent trends in Oxford education, such as post-graduate training and the proposals for co-education. He did much to maintain its high reputation, including the revival of the tradition of making the Master’s Lodgings a port of call for all old Balliol men and others of distinction. Sir David was an able historian with a special interest in constitutional history and law. He wrote Constitutional History of Modern Britain (1938) and (with F. H. Lawson) Cases in Constitutional Law (1928).

  LAWSON, Frederick Henry (1897–1983) was born in Leeds and educated at Leeds Grammar School. He served in the European War 1916–18, after which he went up to Queen’s College, Oxford, and took a First in Modern History. He was a University Lecturer in Law at University College 1924–25. In 1925 he became a Junior Research Fellow at Merton College, and an official Fellow and Tutor in Law 1930–48. After serving as University Lecturer in Byzantine Law 1929–31, Lawson became Professor of Comparative Law and Fellow of Brasenose College 1948–64. Following his retirement he was part-time Professor of Law at the University of Lancaster 1964–77 and he lectured in many American universities. He wrote many books, among which are Negligence in the Civil Law (1950), Constitutional and Administrative Law (1961) and The Oxford Law School 1850–1965 (1968).

  LEWIS, Albert James (1863–1929), the father of C. S. Lewis, was a police court solicitor in Belfast. He was the son of Richard and Martha Lewis and was born in Cork. The family moved to Belfast in 1868. In 1877 Albert went to Lurgan College in Co. Armagh, where the Headmaster was William T. Kirkpatrick—the ‘Great Knock’—who years later was to have Jack Lewis as his pupil. Albert qualified as a solicitor in 1885 and he soon began a practice of his own. He was also known for his love of English literature. After courting her for nine years, he married Florence Augusta ‘Flora’ Hamilton in 1894. She was the daughter of the Rev. Thomas Hamilton, Rector of St Mark’s, Dundela. Their first son, Warren Hamilton, ‘Warnie’, was born on 16 June 1895, and their second son, Clive Staples, ‘Jack’, was born on 29 November 1898. In 1905 this happy family moved from Dundela Villas to ‘Little Lea’, on the outskirts of Belfast, which Albert had specially built for Flora. They enjoyed this for only three years as a family, for in 1908 Flora died of cancer. Thereafter nothing was the same for the others, each unhappy in his own way at the breakup of the family. Albert never stopped grieving over his wife. He had never liked going away from home, and thereafter he gave most of his time to work. From an early age Albert had been a very sincere member of the Church of Ireland, and he continued all his life to be a loyal parishioner of St Mark’s, Dundela. He became ill with cancer in 1929, and he bore it patiently and bravely to the end.

  MCNEILL, Jane ‘Janie’ (1889–1959) was the daughter of James and Margaret McNeill of Belfast. Mr McNeill had had Lewis’s mother as a pupil when he was a master at Campbell College, Belfast, and he considered her ‘the cleverest girl pupil he ever had’. Years later when Mr McNeill was Headmaster of Campbell College he was Lewis’s favourite teacher. Janie was their only child and she remained in Belfast all her life, looking after her mother when her father died in 1907. Although she was a particular friend to Jack, she was fond of the whole Lewis family and visited Albert Lewis regularly. Janie also taught at Campbell College, and in an obituary written for The Campbellian (July 1959) Lewis said of her: ‘She was a religious woman, a true, sometimes a grim, daughter of the Kirk; no less certainly, the broadest-spoken maiden lady in the Six Counties. She was a born satirist. Every kind of sham and self-righteousness was her butt. She deflated the unco-gude with a single ironic phrase, then a moment’s silence, then the great gust of her laughter.’

  MACRAN, the Rev. Dr Frederick Walker (1866–1947)—‘Cranny’—was an old and valued friend of Mrs Moore and Dr John Askins. He was born in Ireland and took a BA from Trinity College Dublin in 1886, after which he became a priest in the Church of Ireland and served in a number of parishes in Co. Down. He moved to England and was Rector of Childrey 1905–23, after which he moved to the diocese of Chelmsford. Lewis described him in Surprised by Joy, ch. XIII, as ‘an old, dirty, gabbling, tragic, Irish parson who had long since lost his faith but retained his living . . . All he wanted was the assurance that something he could call “himself” would, on almost any terms, last longer than his bodily life’.

  ONIONS, Charles Talbut (1873–1965), lexicographer and grammarian, gained a London BA in 1892. In 1895 J. A. H. Murray invited him to join the small staff of the English Dictionary at Oxford. From 1906 to 1913 he was entrusted with the special preparation of various portions of the Dictionary, and then began independent editorial work on the section Su–Sz. He was also responsible for Wh–Worling and the volumes containing X, Y, Z. In 1922 he began to revise and complete William Little’s work on a Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1933). He was a University lecturer in English 1920–27, Reader in English Philology 1927–49, and a Fellow of Magdalen College 1923–65. His most enduring work is likely to be the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (1966).

  PASLEY, (Sir) Rodney (1899–1982) was educate
d at Sherbourne School and served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery during 1914–18. He took a BA from University College in 1921, after which he was Assistant Master at Alleyn’s School, Dulwich, 1921–25; Vice-Principal of Rajkumar College at Rajkot, India 1926–28; Assistant Master at Alleyn’s School 1931–36; Headmaster of Barnstaple Grammar School 1936–43; and he was Headmaster of Central Grammar School, Birmingham, from 1943 until his retirement in 1959. In 1922 he married Aldyth Werge Hamber—‘Johnnie’.

  POYNTON, Arthur Blackburne (1867–1944). He came up to Balliol College in 1885 and was one of the most distinguished undergraduate scholars of his generation. He took a First in Classics in 1889 and in 1890 was elected to a Fellowship at Hertford College. In 1894 he went to University College as Fellow and Praelector in Greek and a tutor in classical scholarship. Poynton was recognised in Oxford not merely as one of the most brilliant of classical teachers, but one of the most able and accurate of scholars. Greek oratory was his own main study, and he probably knew more about it than any of his contemporaries. The depth of his oratorical style was demonstrated in a sparkling lecture delivered in Greek in the manner of Isocrates in November 1927. His teaching ability can be seen in his admirable edition of Cicero Pro Milone (1892), and the grace and breadth of his teaching in Flosculi Graeci (1920) and Flosculi Latini (1922). He was Master of University College 1935–37.

  PRICE, Henry Habberley (1899–1984). He served in the RAF during 1917–19 and then took a first class degree in Classics from New College, Oxford, in 1921. He was a Fellow of Magdalen 1922–23, a Fellow and Lecturer in Trinity College 1924–35, and a University Lecturer in Philosophy at Oxford 1932–35. In 1935 he became Wykeham Professor of Logic and a Fellow of New College. Price was a founder member of the Oxford University and City Gliding Club. He was also interested in Psychical Research and was the President of the Society for Psychical Research. On more than one occasion he debated with Lewis at the Oxford University Socratic Club, and Lewis’s essay ‘Religion Without Dogma?’ (in Undeceptions; and in the U.S.A., God in the Dock) is an answer to Price’s ‘The Grounds of Modern Agnosticism’.

  RALEIGH, Sir Walter (1861–1922), critic and essayist, had been an undergraduate at University College. He was Professor of Modern Literature, University College, Liverpool, 1889–1900, and Professor of English Language and Literature, Glasgow University, 1900–4. In 1904 he became the first holder of a new chair of English Literature at Oxford and a Fellow of Magdalen College, and in 1914 he was elected Merton Professor of English Literature and a Fellow of Merton College. He contributed enormously to the development of the School of English Language and Literature at Oxford and his lectures aroused great enthusiasm. His works include Style (1897), Milton (1900), Wordsworth (1903) and Shakespeare (1907).

  ROBSON-SCOTT, William Douglas (1900–80) matriculated at University College in 1919 and took a First in English Literature in 1923. It is evidence of his remarkable range of gifts that he was appointed assistant lecturer in Dutch at Bedford College, London, in 1929. He took up residence in Berlin in 1932, and moved to Vienna in 1937, where he took a doctorate in English and German. On his return to Britain in 1939 he was appointed lecturer in German at Birkbeck College, University of London. This was interrupted by the War, during which he worked for the War Office. He afterwards returned to Birkbeck College, where he was promoted to Reader in 1961, and in 1966 to Professor of German Language and Literature. He is the author of German Travellers in England 1400–1800 (1953) and Goethe and the Visual Arts (1970).

  SMITH, John Alexander (1863–1939), philosopher and classical scholar, was educated at Edinburgh University and Balliol College, Oxford, where he took a First in Classics in 1887. He became a Fellow of Balliol in 1891 and he was the Waynflete Professor of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy and a Fellow of Magdalen College 1910–36. He was a distinguished Aristotelian scholar, his translation of De Anima appearing in 1931. Smith maintained the idealist tradition of T. H. Green and Edward Caird. He was much influenced by Benedetto Croce and Giovanni Gentile.

  STEAD, William Force (1884–1967) was born in Washington, D.C., and in 1908 he was appointed to the U.S. Consular Service, serving as Vice-Consul in Liverpool and Nottingham. He took a degree from Queen’s College, Oxford, in 1916 and became a priest of the Church of England in 1917. He was Chaplain of Worcester College, Oxford, 1927–33 and it was during this period that he baptised his friend T. S. Eliot. Stead published many volumes of poems, and besides having this interest in common with Lewis, his wife was the sister of Mrs John Askins. He returned to the United States before World War II, where he converted to the Catholic Church. His published poems include Verd Antique (1920), The Sweet Miracle (1922) and Festival in Tuscany (1927).

  STEVENSON, George Hope (1880–1952), C. S. Lewis’s tutor in History, was born in Glasgow and educated at Glasgow University. He went to Balliol College, where he took a First in Classics. In 1906 he was elected to a Fellowship at University College as Praelector in Ancient History at University College. He remained there till his retirement in 1949. Stevenson was at his best when taking private pupils, but he was not considered a good lecturer. He made a number of important contributions to the study of Roman history, and mention should be made of his Roman History (1930) and Roman Provincial Administration (1939). A man of high integrity, he was a keen Churchman with Anglo-Catholic convictions. For many years he was a church warden at St Margaret’s Church, Oxford. In later years he learned to serve at the Altar, an office usually performed by youths and boys.

  SUFFERN, Mrs Lily (1860–1934)—‘Aunt Lily’—was the eldest daughter of the Rev. and Mrs Thomas Hamilton of Belfast, and thus the sister of Lewis’s mother. There is a portrait of her by Warren Lewis in the Lewis Papers, II, 148–49 in which he says: ‘Lily was a clever, but eccentric woman, handsome in her youth. Her cutting insolence and her extremely quarrelsome disposition made her the stormy petrel of the family, with all or several of whose members she was perpetually at war. Albert [Lewis] never forgave her for the arrow she launched at him in writing to another member of the clan on a legal problem, when she observed of him in an airy parenthesis, “for poor Allie is so ignorant”. The good nature of her nephew Clive Lewis (whom she addressed as “Cleeve”) enabled her for many years in later life to conduct a pseudo-metaphysical correspondence which bears melancholy evidence of a good brain run to seed.’ She married William Suffern, who by 1886 was in an asylum in Peebles, Scotland. In 1900 he was declared insane, and he died in 1913. After this her chief solace was the poetry of Browning and a numerous collection of cats. She led a wandering life, living successively at Peebles, Edinburgh, Holywood, Co. Down, Donaghadee, Oxford, Broadway and Perranporth.

  TOLKIEN, John Ronald Reuel (1892–1973) was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, and brought up in Birmingham. He was educated at King Edward’s School, Birmingham, where his love of languages was already in flower. He matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, in 1911, where he read Honour Moderations. For his special subject he chose Comparative Philology and was taught by Joseph Wright. He went on to read English Language and Literature and took a First in 1915. It was also during his undergraduate years that Tolkien developed his interest in painting and drawing. He was a Lieutenant with the Lancashire Fusiliers during 1915–18 and took part in the Battle of the Somme. It was while he was still in the army, convalescing from an illness, that he began writing The Silmarillion. After working for a while on the Oxford Dictionary, he became Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds 1920–24 and Professor of English Language at Leeds 1924. In 1925 he returned to Oxford as Professor of Anglo-Saxon. It was during 1926 that he and Lewis became friends, and a few years later he began The Hobbit. He was Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford 1945–59. The Lord of the Rings was published 1954–55.

  WARDALE, Edith Elizabeth (1863–1943) entered Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, in 1887, and moved a year later to the recently opened St Hugh’s Hall (now College). After obt
aining a First in Modern Languages she became Vice-Principal and Tutor of St Hugh’s Hall and Tutor to the Association for the High Education of Women. She was intimately connected with women’s education during some of the most important years of its history. She was Tutor in English at St Hugh’s until 1923. Her publications include An Old English Grammar (1922) and An Introduction to Middle English (1937).

  WARREN, Sir Thomas Herbert (1853–1930) came up to Balliol College in 1872 when Benjamin Jowett had been two years Master and the College was at the height of its reputation. There were other great men there at the time, and Warren held his own in this distinguished society. He took a first class degree in Classics and was chosen to represent the University at Rugby football. Probably the greatest influence upon Warren was Jowett whose ideal of a college was a training ground for public life. In 1877 he was elected to a prize fellowship at Magdalen, and shortly afterwards to a classical tutorship. In 1885, at the age of 32, he was elected President of Magdalen, an office he held until 1928. At times he seemed over-anxious about the social standing of his undergraduates, but this seems to have been his desire to secure the best for Magdalen. It was an unusual tribute to the position of his College that King George V in 1912 chose it for the Prince of Wales. He wrote two volume of verse, By Severn Sea (1897) and The Death of Virgil (1907), and was one of the founders of the Oxford Magazine.

  WIBLIN, Vida Mary (1895–1937)—‘Smudge’—was born in Oxford and educated at the Cathedral School and Oxford High School for Girls. She matriculated at the Society of Oxford Home-Students (later St Anne’s College) in 1920 and received her Bachelor of Music in 1924. She went on to read for a degree in Latin and Greek. She took her BA in 1926. Miss Wiblin, who never married, was musical director at Magdalen College School 1926–37, where she was a well known and loved figure. She was also pianist to the Bach Choir and the Eglesfield Musical Society at Queen’s College, and she worked hard and loyally as co-secretary of the Oxford Orchestral Society.