The Fox, The Bees and The Pelican

Worthies and Noteworthies of Corpus ChristiCollege, Oxford

By Richard Symonds

CCC 2002, reprinted 2004Price : £10.00

In this volume, first published in 2002, Richard Symonds (CCC 1936), author of a number of books including Oxford and Empire (OUP, 1991), has collected and revised his various articles for the Pelican Record on former members of the College, primarily from the 19th and 20th centuries, and added a considerable amount of new material. The resulting work shows the influence of Corpus on Oxford and British culture, and exposes some of the more intriguing and colourful personalities among its past members.

The book begins with a chapter on the Founder, Richard Foxe, and his remarkable political career as chief adviser to Henry VII and Henry VIII, who replaced him with Foxe’s own protégé Wolsey. It includes accounts of Thomas Day, the eccentric author of the idealistic novel Sandford and Merton, whose own search for the perfect marriage makes fascinating reading; of the rather mixed characters of the old members of the early 19C whose portraits appear in the Hall, including the scholarly Coplestone, Provost of Oriel, Dean of St Paul’s and Bishop of Llandaff, and the comically conservative Chief Justice, Charles Abbott, Lord Tenterden; of the great but opposing contemporary Corpus scholars and religious leaders, Dr Arnold and John Keble. Further figures include Dr J.A.Giles, controversial clergyman and prolific textbook author, famously imprisoned in Oxford gaol for uncanonically conducting his servant’s wedding; John Ruskin and his ambiguous views of the College where he lived for some years; the literary figures of Corpus in the Victorian and Edwardian periods, especially the Poet Laureate Robert Bridges and Henry Newbolt, poet of Empire; the Bostonian plutocrat Edward Perry Warren, and his interests in Greek culture, beautiful artefacts, and handsome young men; the dinosauric President Thomas Case, the chief Oxford conservative of his time, who fought to the last to oppose degrees for women and the abolition of compulsory Greek; and his successor P.S.Allen, a great Erasmus scholar whose devotion to the College sometimes had an unworldly character. Other chapters look at the range of careers pursued by Corpus men in the first half of the 20th century, especially in the administration of the British Empire.

The first printing of this volume is now exhausted, and a new printing has been made to coincide with the publication of the volume’s successor, Daring To Be Wise (see the reverse of this sheet). It can be now be ordered again by mail using this form, or purchased in person at the College Lodge.

Please send me …… copies of The Fox, Bees and the Pelican at £10.00 each. FBP

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Cheques made out to ‘Corpus ChristiCollege, Oxford’ should accompany all orders, which should be sent to Prof. S.J.Harrison, Corpus ChristiCollege, Oxford, OX1 4JF.