Sir Mungo William MacCallum KCMG (26 February 1854 – 3 September 1942) was Chancellor of the University of Sydney

University of Sydney

The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...

 from 1934 to 1936, and a noted literary critic

Literary criticism

Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...

.

Mungo MacCallum was born in Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, the son of Mungo MacCallum, merchant, and his wife Isabella, née Renton. He studied at the University of Glasgow

University of Glasgow

The University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...

 and at Berlin

Humboldt University of Berlin

The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...

 and Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...

. In Germany MacCallum concentrated on medieval literature, he published several articles in the Cornhill Magazine in 1879-80. In 1884 he published Studies in Low German and High German literature.

MacCallum became Professor of Literature at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth

University of Wales, Aberystwyth

Aberystwyth University is a university located in Aberystwyth, Wales. Aberystwyth was a founding Member Institution of the former federal University of Wales. As of late 2006, the university had over 12,000 students spread across seventeen academic departments.The university was founded in 1872 as...

 in 1879, but moved to Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

 in 1887 to take up the post of Foundation Professor of Modern Language and Literature at Sydney University, MacCallum was chosen over 44 other candidates. In 1897 MacCallum became president of the Sydney University Union. In 1898 he was made Dean of the Faculty of Arts. In April 1928 MacCallum was elected deputy chancellor and became Chancellor of the university in 1934. The Mungo MacCallum Building at the University of Sydney

University of Sydney

The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...

 was named in his honour.

Sir Mungo wrote a number of works of literary criticism on English and German literature, and is most notable for his work on Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

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In 1894, MacCallum published a book Tennyson's Idylls of the King and Arthurian Story from the 16th century in which he traced the Arthurian story from its 'Brythonic' origins through Thomas Malory

Thomas Malory

Sir Thomas Malory was an English writer, the author or compiler of Le Morte d'Arthur. The antiquary John Leland as well as John Bale believed him to be Welsh, but most modern scholars, beginning with G. L...

 and up to its final phase in Lord Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language....

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MacCallum married Dorette Margaretha Peters in 1882 and had three children. A daughter, Isabella Renton MacCallum, and two sons: Mungo Lorenz MacCallum, (1884–1934), Rhodes scholar in 1906, who would go on to lecture in Roman Law at the University of Sydney; and Walter Paton MacCallum, who became a brigadeer general in the army

Australian Army

The Australian Army is Australia's military land force. It is part of the Australian Defence Force along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. While the Chief of Defence commands the Australian Defence Force , the Army is commanded by the Chief of Army...

.

Critical legacy

In his 1967 foreword to Shakespeare's Roman Plays and Their Background,
Terence Spencer of the Shakespeare Institute

Shakespeare Institute

The Shakespeare Institute is a centre for postgraduate study dedicated to the study of William Shakespeare and the literature of the English Renaissance. It is part of the University of Birmingham, and is located in Stratford-upon-Avon....

 judged MacCallum's "indispensable"
1910 book as unusual in having "outlasted changes of fashion in criticism."

External links

• National Library Search - list of publications held by the NLA
  National Library of Australia
  The National Library of Australia is the largest reference library of Australia, responsible under the terms of the National Library Act for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the...
  
  by Sir Mungo William MacCallum or his descendants
• Sir Mungo William MacCallum (1854-1942) - Sydney University History biography of Sir Mungo