Oscar Browning - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Oscar Browning was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

, historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

, and educational reformer. His greatest achievement was the cofounding, along with Henry Sidgwick

Henry Sidgwick

Henry Sidgwick was an English utilitarian philosopher and economist. He was one of the founders and first president of the Society for Psychical Research, a member of the Metaphysical Society, and promoted the higher education of women...

, of the Cambridge University Day Training College in 1891. This was one of the earliest institutions in Great Britain to focus on the training of educators, preempted only by the founding of the Cambridge Teaching College for Women by Elizabeth Hughes

Elizabeth Phillips Hughes

Elizabeth Phillips Hughes was a Welsh scholar, teacher, and promoter of women's education. She used the bardic name Merch Myrddin....

in 1885.

Life

Browning was born in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, the son of a merchant, William Shipton Browning, and educated at Eton College

Eton College

Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

, where he was a pupil of William Johnson Cory

William Johnson Cory

William Johnson Cory , born William Johnson, was an educator and poet, born at Torrington, and educated at Eton, where he was afterwards a renowned master, nicknamed Tute by his pupils...

and at King's College, Cambridge

King's College, Cambridge

King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....

, where he became fellow

Fellow

A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...

and tutor

Tutor

A tutor is a person employed in the education of others, either individually or in groups. To tutor is to perform the functions of a tutor.-Teaching assistance:...

, graduating fourth in the classical

Classics

Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...

tripos

Tripos

The University of Cambridge, England, divides the different kinds of honours bachelor's degree by Tripos , plural Triposes. The word has an obscure etymology, but may be traced to the three-legged stool candidates once used to sit on when taking oral examinations...

of 1860, and where he was inducted into the exclusive Cambridge Apostles

Cambridge Apostles

The Cambridge Apostles, also known as the Cambridge Conversazione Society, is an intellectual secret society at the University of Cambridge founded in 1820 by George Tomlinson, a Cambridge student who went on to become the first Bishop of Gibraltar....

, a debating society for the Cambridge elite.

For fifteen years he was a Master at Eton College, until he was dismissed in the autumn of 1875. His parents' church, St. Andrew's, in Clewer

Clewer

Clewer is an ecclesiastical parish and region of Windsor making up three wards of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in the English county of Berkshire.-History:...

, describes the reasons for his dismissal as "his injudicious talk, his favourites, and his anarchic spirit."

After Eton he returned to King's College, Cambridge, where he took up a life Fellowship and where he achieved a reputation as a wit, and became universally known as "O.B.". He traveled to India at George Curzon

George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston

George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, KG, GCSI, GCIE, PC , known as The Lord Curzon of Kedleston between 1898 and 1911 and as The Earl Curzon of Kedleston between 1911 and 1921, was a British Conservative statesman who was Viceroy of India and Foreign Secretary...

's invitation after the latter had become viceroy. He resumed residence in 1876 at Cambridge, where he became university lecturer

Lecturer

Lecturer is an academic rank. In the United Kingdom, lecturer is a position at a university or similar institution, often held by academics in their early career stages, who lead research groups and supervise research students, as well as teach...

in history

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

. He soon became a prominent figure in college and university life, encouraging especially the study of political science and modern political history, the extension of university teaching and the movement for the training of teachers.

Browning served as principal of the Cambridge University Day Training College (1891- 1909), treasurer of the Cambridge Union Society

Cambridge Union Society

The Cambridge Union Society, commonly referred to as simply "the Cambridge Union" or "the Union," is a debating society in Cambridge, England and is the largest society at the University of Cambridge. Since its founding in 1815, the Union has developed a worldwide reputation as a noted symbol of...

(1881-1902), founding treasurer of the Cambridge University Liberal Club

Cambridge Student Liberal Democrats

Cambridge Student Liberal Democrats is the student branch of the Liberal Democrats for students at both Cambridge University and the Anglia Ruskin University campus in Cambridge...

(1885-1908), and president of the Cambridge Footlights (1890-1895).

He stood for Parliament

Parliament of the United Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

three times as a Liberal

Liberal Party (UK)

The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

- in Norwood

Norwood (UK Parliament constituency)

Norwood was a parliamentary constituency in South London which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom by the first past the post system.-History:...

in 1886

United Kingdom general election, 1886

-Seats summary:-See also:*MPs elected in the UK general election, 1886*The Parliamentary Franchise in the United Kingdom 1885-1918-References:*F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987**...

, East Worcestershire

East Worcestershire (UK Parliament constituency)

East Worcestershire was a county constituency in the county of Worcestershire, represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom....

in 1892

United Kingdom general election, 1892

The 1892 United Kingdom general election was held from 4 July to 26 July 1892. It saw the Conservatives, led by Lord Salisbury, win the greatest number of seats, but not enough for an overall majority as William Ewart Gladstone's Liberals won many more seats than in the 1886 general election...

, and West Derby in 1895

United Kingdom general election, 1895

The United Kingdom general election of 1895 was held from 13 July - 7 August 1895. It was won by the Conservatives led by Lord Salisbury who formed an alliance with the Liberal Unionist Party and had a large majority over the Liberals, led by Lord Rosebery...

.

He left Cambridge in 1908 and retired to Bexhill-on-Sea

Bexhill-on-Sea

Bexhill-on-Sea is a town and seaside resort in the county of East Sussex, in the south of England, within the District of Rother. It has a population of approximately 40,000...

. In 1914 he was visiting Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

when World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

broke out. He decided to stay there and spent his later years in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

where he died in 1923 at the age of eighty-six.

He was a member of the Athenaeum

Athenaeum Club, London

The Athenaeum Club, usually just referred to as the Athenaeum, is a notable London club with its Clubhouse located at 107 Pall Mall, London, England, at the corner of Waterloo Place....

, the Alpine Club

Alpine Club

The first Alpine Club, founded in London in 1857, was once described as:Today, Alpine clubs stage climbing competitions, operate alpine huts and paths, and are active in protecting the Alpine environment...

, and the Bath Club

Bath Club

The Bath Club was a sports-themed London gentlemen's club in the twentieth century. It was established in 1894 at 34 Dover Street. Its swimming pool was a noted feature, and it is thought that the swimming pool of the fictional Drones Club was based on this. Sir Henry "Chips" Channon was a member....

Cultural Influence

These days most people know Browning as the arch villain of Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....

's feminist manifesto A Room of One's Own

A Room of One's Own

A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published on 24 October 1929, the essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women's colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928...

. Quoting H.E. Wortham, Woolf condemns Browning as one who "was wont to declare 'that the impression left on his [Browning's] mind, after looking over any set of examination papers, was that [. . .] the best woman was intellectually the inferior of the worst man.'" After painting an unsavory picture of Browning's sexual proclivity for young men, Woolf ends by theorizing that "because Mr. Oscar Browning was a great figure in Cambridge at one time," his negative opinion of the intelligence of women would have rubbed off on the fathers of the day and his words would have been cited by them to dissuade their daughters from pursuing higher education.

Although Wortham was Browning's nephew and first biographer, there are problems with his scholarship. Wortham had access to Browning's private papers but included scant footnotes in his 1927 biography of his uncle. Indeed Wortham fails to provide any source, context, or citation for the infamous quote on the inferiority of the intelligence of women. Furthermore Wortham's sources are impossible to reconstruct because as Dr. Rosalind Moad, archivist at King's College, Cambridge

King's College, Cambridge

, has pointed out the papers taken by Wortham to produce this biography "disappeared" after Wortham published the work. Included among the missing papers are almost all of Browning's diaries and much of his correspondence. However enough Browning papers survive in the archive at Eton

Eton College

and other places so that Dr. Mark McBeth, an expert on the educational innovations of Browning, can state that "archival materials [. . .] debunk the feminist myth that Browning disparaged women's educational benefits as well as being antagonistic to women's political issues."

Works

Browning's works include:

England and Napoleon in 1803 (1887)
History of England (4 vols. 1890)
Dante; Life and Works (1891)
Wars of the Nineteenth Century (1899)
History of Europe 1814-1843 (1901)
Guelphs and Ghibellines (1903)
Napoleon, the first Phase (1905)
Memories of Sixty Years at Eton, Cambridge and Elsewhere (1910), ISBN 1-4021-8433-6

Life

Cultural Influence

Works

Further reading