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150 YEARS OF ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY PUBLISHING

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2018

Ian W. Archer
Ian W. Archer*
Affiliation:
RHS Literary Director 2004–14
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Abstract

The 150th anniversary of the Royal Historical Society offers an opportunity for an investigation into its publications over the longue durée. Its slow transformation from an association of literary dilettanti to a body of professional historians in the period 1890–1910 was accompanied by changes to its publication programme: the appointment of a literary director, an improvement in the quality of papers read, the merger with the Camden Society and the commitment to a programme of historical bibliographies established the basis of the Society's publishing programme for much of the twentieth century. The interwar years saw new initiatives including the launch of Guides and Handbooks, but the Society was already losing momentum, and an ill-fated foray into the publication of diplomatic records stymied its reputation. The 1950s and 1960s were a period of ongoing stasis, from which the Society was rescued in the early 1970s by G. R. Elton and his allies, who promoted a monograph series and the Annual Bibliographies. The momentum of change was sustained by the early commitment to an electronic version of its bibliographies, and still more recently by a commitment to open access monographs. The changing profile of the Society's publications by gender of author, period and area is charted, raising questions about future directions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 28 , December 2018 , pp. 265 - 288
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 2018 

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References

1 The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has proved helpful on the backgrounds, careers and values of key individuals. Rather than citing articles individually, I have adopted the expedient of identifying subjects in the Dictionary by means of an asterisk.

2 RHS, Council, 18 Dec. 1890, 15 Jan. 1891, 29 Jan. 1891, 19 Feb. 1891, 19 Mar. 1891. See also Humphreys, R. A., The Royal Historical Society 1868–1968 (1969), 23–4Google Scholar; Tout, T. F., ‘Presidential Address’, TRHS, fourth series, 9 (1926)Google Scholar, is also revealing on the Society's early years.

3 J[ohnson], C[harles], ‘Hubert Hall, 1857–1944’, TRHS, fourth series, 28 (1946), 1–5Google Scholar.

4 Humphreys, Royal Historical Society, 1–20, quotation at 11–12.

5 Burrow, J., ‘Victorian Historians and the Royal Historical Society’, TRHS, fifth series, 39 (1989), 125–40Google Scholar.

6 Levine, P., The Amateur and the Professional. Antiquarians, Historians, and Archaeologists in Victorian England, 1838–1886 (Cambridge, 1986), 173Google Scholar.

7 Dove, P. E., ‘Preface’, TRHS, old series, 4 (1889)Google Scholar, n.p.; Humphreys, Royal Historical Society, 20–2.

8 Burrow, ‘Victorian Historians’, 135–8; Sofer, R. N., Discipline and Power. The University, History, and the Making of an English Elite, 1870–1930 (Stanford, 1994), 54–6Google Scholar, 90–6.

9 Levine, The Amateur and the Professional, 133. For the debate over professionalization and the ambiguities of the process, see Goldstein, D., ‘The Organizational Development of the British Historical Profession, 1884–1921’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 55 (1982), 180–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jann, R., The Art and Science of Victorian History (Columbus, OH, 1983)Google Scholar; Slee, P. R. H., Learning and a Liberal Education. The Study of Modern History in the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Manchester, 1800–1914 (Manchester, 1986)Google Scholar; Sofer, Discipline and Power.

10 RHS, Council, 12 May 1892, 16 Feb. 1893.

11 Humphreys, Royal Historical Society, 24–6.

12 RHS, Council, 19 Mar. 1903; Select Despatches from the British Foreign Office Archives relating to the Formation of the Third Coalition against France, 1804–1805, ed. J. Holland Rose (Camden Society, third series, 7, 1904); Parliamentary Papers of John Robinson, 1774–1784, ed. W. T. Laprade (Camden Society, third series, 33, 1922).

13 Levy, F. J., ‘The Founding of the Camden Society’, Victorian Studies, 7 (1964), 295–305Google Scholar; Johnson, C., ‘The Camden Society, 1838–1938’, TRHS, fourth series, 22 (1940), 23–38Google Scholar; Humphreys, Royal Historical Society, 52–67.

14 RHS, Camden Society, secretary's correspondence file, C3/2.

15 The Letters of Frederic William Maitland, ed. C. H. S. Fifoot (Cambridge, 1965), 181. I am grateful to George Garnett for drawing Maitland's letters to my attention. For more on Hall, see Humphreys, Royal Historical Society, 40. See also Tout, T. F., ‘Review of The Red Book of the Exchequer. Edited by Hubert Hall’, English Historical Review, 13 (1898), 145–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and more damning, Poole, R. L., ‘Review of Studies on the Red Book of the Exchequer. By J. H. Round and The Red Book of the Exchequer: A Reply to Mr J. H. Round. By Hubert Hall’, English Historical Review, 14 (1899), 148–50Google Scholar. The Round–Hall affair has been subject to comprehensive analysis by Procter, M., ‘The Red Book of the Exchequer: A Curious Affair Revisited’, Historical Research, 87 (2014), 510–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 RHS, Council, 17 Dec. 1903, 17 Mar. 1904, 21 Apr. 1904, 15 Dec. 1904, 8 Dec. 1921, 12 June 1924.

17 RHS, Council, 15 Dec. 1904, 20 Dec. 1906, 18 June 1908, 17 Dec. 1908, 16 Mar. 1909.

18 RHS, Council, 12 Jan. 1907.

19 Prothero, G., ‘Presidential Address’, TRHS, new series, 19 (1905), 15–17Google Scholar; Report of Council, 1904–5.

20 Hubert Hall's ‘Memorandum on the Serial Distribution of the Royal Historical Society's Publications’, prepared for RHS, Publications Committee, 21 Sept. 1933, documents the shifting balance of publications.

21 RHS, Council, 16 Feb. 1893.

22 Parker, C., The English Historical Tradition since 1850 (Edinburgh, 1990), 109–17Google Scholar.

23 Temperley, H., ‘Review of British Diplomatic Instructions, 1689–1789. Vol. i, Sweden, 1689–1727’, English Historical Review, 38 (1923), 281–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Review of British Diplomatic Instructions, 1689–1789. Vol. ii, France, 1689–1721’, English Historical Review, 41 (1926), 603–4; Lodge, R., ‘Review of British Diplomatic Instructions, 1689–1789. Vol. iv, France, 1721–1727’, English Historical Review, 43 (1928), 433–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Historische Gesellschaft zu Berlin, Jahresberichte der Geschichtswissenschaft im Auftrage der Historischen Gesellschaft zu Berlin (Berlin, 1878–1913)Google Scholar.

25 Sources and Literature of English History from the Earliest Times to about 1485 (1900), ii.

26 Harrison, F., ‘A Proposal for a New Historical Bibliography’, TRHS, new series, 11 (1897), 11–30Google Scholar.

27 RHS, Council, 15 Mar. 1900.

28 Prothero, George, ‘Presidential Address’, TRHS, new series, 17 (1903), ix–xxxivGoogle Scholar. For Prothero, see also Crawley, C. W., ‘Sir Gorge Prothero and his Circle’, TRHS, fifth series, 20 (1970), 101–28Google Scholar; Bentley, M., ‘The Age of Prothero: British History in the Long Fin de Siècle, 1870–1920’, TRHS, sixth series, 20 (2010), 171–93Google Scholar.

29 See the illuminating correspondence folders on Bibliography projects, 1911–74, at RHS for negotiations with publishers and fund raising initiatives.

30 Bibliography of British History, Stuart Period, 1603–1714, ed. Godfrey Davies (Oxford, 1928); Bibliography of British History, Tudor Period, 1485–1603, ed. Conyers Read (Oxford, 1933).

31 Humphreys, Royal Historical Society, 35; RHS, Council, 14 Mar. 1935, 12 May 1945, 15 Dec. 1945, 15 Mar. 1947; Royal Historical Society, Writings on British History: 1934– (1937–86).

32 RHS, Council, 12 Oct. 1933, with report of Publications Committee, 21 Sept. 1933.

33 RHS, Council, 11 Mar. 1937. The series on diplomatic agents was first mooted in 1927 and was strongly supported by both Temperley and Sir Richard Lodge: Council, 8 Dec. 1927.

34 ‘Ellen Marianne Leonard – President of the Students’ Union, 1907’, http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsehistory/2016/03/24/ellen-marianne-leonard/.

35 The swipe at J. P. Kenyon, The History Men: The Historical Profession in England since the Renaissance, 2nd edn (1993), is intentional.

36 I am grateful for help with the Alexander Prize and women in Transactions to Katy Cubitt and Simon Baker respectively. For Lubimenko, my research student Mikhail Belan has provided invaluable assistance. The archivists of Somerville College and Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford and Girton College in Cambridge have been helpful on the careers of women scholars.

37 RHS, box 3, folder 143/2, Hall was writing to Miss Curran at least twice a week.

38 Joy McCarthy, ‘Jean Chapman, 1934–2015’, Newsletter, Oct. 2015; Peter Mandler, presidential letter, Newsletter, Dec. 2016.

39 RHS, Council, 18 Feb. 1915.

40 J. V. Beckett, ‘Women Historians and the VCH’, paper at ‘London Women Historians: A Celebration and a Conversation’, 2017, podcast online at www.history.ac.uk/exhibitions/womenhistorians/index.html; Carol Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex?: Women in British Universities, 1870–1939 (2016), 135–8, 145–6; Berg, M., A Woman in History: Eileen Power, 1889–1940 (Cambridge, 1996), 71, 156–7Google Scholar; B. G. Smith, The Gender of History. Men, Women and Historical Practice (1998), ch. 7. I have also benefited from the insights of Caroline Barron and Jane Garnett on these questions.

41 RHS, Bellot papers, memorandum of 20 June 1950.

42 See the helpful summary of Council resolutions in letter from R. H. C. Davis to Ian Christie, 8 Sept. 1968, Bodleian Library, K. V. Thomas papers, box 21. I am grateful to Sir Keith Thomas for permission to consult his papers.

43 RHS, Bellot papers, C. Clay to Bellot, 4 June 1946.

44 RHS, Bellot papers, T. F. Plucknett to Bellot, undated, ?1949.

45 RHS, folder on bibliographies of British history, Read to Jordan, 18 July 1952.

46 RHS, Bellot papers, Knowles to Bellot, 15 Nov. 1950; cf. same to same 3 Nov. 1949; Elton papers, presidential correspondence, Harrison to Elton, 12 Sept. 1973.

47 RHS, Elton papers, presidential correspondence, Elton to Harrison, 29 June 1973; Elton to G. Davis, 9 Feb. 1974.

48 RHS, Elton papers, presidential correspondence, Elton to K. V. Thomas, 31 Oct. 1973.

49 RHS, file of returns to survey on publications, 1973. See also Elton papers, presidential correspondence, P. Chaplais to Elton, 2 Feb. 1974, J. C. Holt to Elton, 17 Dec. 1973, for the notion of the ‘reformed Camden’.

50 RHS, Council, 8 Feb. 1974.

51 RHS, Council, 20 Sept. 1975, 21 Nov. 1975, 5 Mar. 1976, 18 Sept. 1976.

52 RHS, Council, 8 Mar. 1974, 21 Sept. 1974, 18 Sept. 1976.

53 RHS, Council, 12 Dec. 1992, 28 May 1993, 21 Jan. 1994. Boydell and Brewer continued to publish Studies in History.

54 Reports of Council.

55 The paragraphs which follow draw on the author's personal recollections, but the story can be followed through the successive reports of Council in TRHS, as well as the reports to AHRB/AHRC as archived in the Publications Committee papers. There is a considerable amount of information on the BBIH project website. See also www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/articles/RHSB.html.

56 Paper by Andrew Pettegree, ‘The Studies in History Monograph Series’, RHS, Publications Committee, Apr. 2014. The proposals were initially quite contentious.

57 S. Newman and P. Summerfield, ‘New Historical Perspectives’, Newsletter, May 2016.

58 See the author's paper ‘Towards a Closer Union: European Historical Bibliographies’, RHS, Publications Committee, 23 Nov. 2007.