1st Edition
Gerald Howard-Smith and the ‘Lost Generation’ of Late Victorian and Edwardian England
CONTENTS
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
PRIVILEGE
2. ‘A Thoroly Sound Healthy Minded Good Fellow’: Home, School and Socialisation
3. ‘An Unassailable Distinction through Life’: University, Sport and Status
CAREER
4. ‘Gentlemanly Manners and Refined Habits’: London, the Home Counties and Teaching
5. ‘A Gentleman of Experience’: Wolverhampton, Sport and the Law
SACRIFICE
6. ‘The Thing to Do’: Class, Patriotism and Preparation
7. ‘Large, Gallant and Loose-Limbed’: Class, Patriotism and Sacrifice
COMMEMORATION
8. ‘In Loving Memory’: Class and Commemoration, Representation and Misrepresentation
Select Bibliography
Index
Biography
John Benson is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Wolverhampton. He has written widely on nineteenth and twentieth-century history, has held visiting positions in Canada and Japan, and has spoken on his work throughout Great Britain as well as in Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United States of America. His books include British Coalminers in the Nineteenth Century, The Working Class in Britain, 1850-1939, The Rise of Consumer Society in Britain, 1880-1980, Prime Time: A History of the Middle Aged in Twentieth-Century Britain, Affluence and Authority: A Social History of Twentieth-Century Britain, and The Wolverhampton Tragedy: Death and the ‘Respectable’ Mr Lawrence.
'In this engaging and well-written book, Benson offers a new approach to historical biography – the idea of a life written from the outside. How should we study individuals who left no personal papers, who didn’t pen memoirs or diaries? Benson has the answer – with his ‘biography from the outside’ he offers a brand new approach that will serve as a model for professional historians and students alike. Taking the example of sportsman and solicitor Gerald Howard-Smith, this excellent book explores just how far it is possible to reconstruct a life based on external sources.'
Dr Jane Hamlett, Royal Holloway University of London, UK
