In the aftermath of the Great War, the English Province developed a much stronger educational apostolate through publications, newspaper articles, university lectures, and new houses in the university cities of Oxford, Edinburgh, Cambridge, and Stellenbosch in Southern Africa. This was complemented by the opening of a boys school at Laxton in Northamptonshire followed later by a prep school at Llanarth, and later still of a Conference Centre, Spode House, at Hawkesyard. Much of the growth can be traced to the leadership given by Bede Jarrett, Provincial for four terms from 1916 to 1932, who also initiated the mission in Southern Africa. However, the Province maintained its parish commitments, and by the end of the 1950s the Province was stretched too thinly to ensure the well-running of each house. Community and parish life at Pendleton deteriorated to the point where there was no option other than closure of the priory and withdrawal from the parish.

The history of the English Dominicans has been too little studied, in part because much documentary evidence has been lost. The present book is the first comprehensive history of the Province for a century. Its value lies not only in covering developments that have taken place since 1921, and in drawing on recent research for its account of earlier periods, but in offering a critical re-evaluation of the evidence from a fresh perspective. The book adopts an inclusive approach where earlier studies were often weakened through being limited to a particular region or individual, or by focussing more on the earliest growth of the Province than on later developments, by inattention to opponents of the friars, or by neglect of their relations to lay supporters.