Sir John Plumb: The Hidden Life of a Great Historian

by Neil McKendrick

Overview

Sir John (Jack) Harold Plumb (1911 - 2001) was a great British historian.This is a very personal account written by Neil McKendrick, a fellow historian, a fellow Master of a Cambridge college and one his oldest and closest friends

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781913087227
Publisher:	Edward Everett Root
Publication date:	07/15/2020
Pages:	220
Product dimensions:	5.55(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.61(d)

About the Author

Neil McKendrick is one of the best known historians in 18th century studies.  He graduated with a ‘starred’ First in History at Cambridge in 1956. He was elected into a Research Fellowship at Christ’s College in March 1958 and elected as Fellow, College Lecturer and Director of Studies in History at Gonville & Caius College in October 1958. He was appointed Chairman of the History Faculty in 1985 and Master of Caius in 1996. His classic work (with John Brewer and J.H.Plumb) is The Birth of a Consumer Society: the Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century England, newly available from EER in a second expanded edition. / His other publications include Historical Perspectives: Studies in English Thought and Society (1974), , The Birth of Foreign & Colonial: the World’s First Investment Trust (1993), and F & C: a History of Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust (1999). He was general editor of the Europa Library of Business Biography and the Europa History of Human Experience. He is noted for his work on Josiah Wedgwood and the Industrial Revolution. He is currently a Life Fellow and former Master of Caius College and an Honorary Fellow of Christ’s College.

Table of Contents

Contents: Introduction. Biography. Preface. Sir John Plumb. Family upbringing and schooling: Leicester and Alderman Newton's. Plumb at Cambridge. Plumb's Early Research. Plumb's publications. Plumb, Elton and Chadwick and The Regius Chair. Plumb and his adopted family. Plumb's Reputation as a Patron, a Promoter and a Fixer. Fictional Portraits of Plumb. Painted Portraits of Plumb. Plumb at Bletchley. Influences on Plumb. The Sources of Plumb's wealth. Plumb as Editor. Plumb's Apolarist Life style. Expensive cars and Their Destruction. Plumb the Big Spender: Houses, Holidays and Other Indulgences. Plumb and His New friends: A Case of Social Nobility. Plumb's reputation as a Scholar. Plumbs' Health and His Declining Productivity. Plumb's Professional Reputation. Plumbs' Dedications. Plumbs' Other Writing. Plumb's Pupils. Plumb's Changing Political Beliefs. Plumb's Generosity: to his Staff and His Friends and Himself. Plumb's Wine. Plumb's Donations. Plumb's Private Life. Plumb and Friendship. The Posthumous Sale of 2002. Plumb's Adopted Family. A Postscript on the Black Years. The Plumb Master ship in Context. Other Public Recognition. Desert Island Discs. Plumb's Changing Attitudes' to His Pupils. The End of Life, Death and a Memorial Dinner: Memories and Legacy and Final Judgements. Postscript: Sir J.H.Plumb Historian and Teacher of Historians. Acknowledgements. Select Bibliography.

Editorial Reviews

"A riveting read with its unique insights into a powerful, complex and difficult character, Jack Plumb, an outsider who in the second half of the twentieth century brilliantly combined the worlds of academic and popular history, New York high society and the British establishment, but who never felt he received his due." - Professor John Brewer.

​"It is very good - an unstoppable read". - Professor Norman Stone.

"What a fascinating study." - Professor Lord Asa Briggs.

"I read your memoir of Jack at a single sitting. I couldn't put it down: what a wonderful pen portrait you provide of a man who had such an immense impact on both of us. Thank you for bringing Jack back to life like this." - Professor Geoffrey Parker.

From the Publisher