Charles Harding Firth

Charles Harding Firth (1857-1936)

Sir Charles Harding Firth was a British historian. Born in Sheffield, he was educated at Clifton College and at Balliol College, Oxford. At university he took the Stanhope prize for an essay on Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley in 1877, became lecturer at Pembroke College in 1887, and fellow of All Souls College in 1901. He was Ford's lecturer in English history in 1900, and became Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford in succession to Frederick York Powell in 1904. Firth's historical work was almost entirely confined to English history during the time of the English Civil War and the Commonwealth; and although he is somewhat overshadowed by S.R. Gardiner, who wrote about the same period, his books were highly regarded. He was a great friend and ally of T.F. Tout, who was professionalising the History undergraduate programme at Manchester University, especially by introducing a key element of individual study of original sources and production of a thesis. Firth's attempts to do likewise at Oxford brought him into bitter conflict with the college fellows, who had little research expertise of their own and saw no reason why their undergraduates should be made to acquire such arcane, even artisan, skills, given their likely careers. They saw Firth as a power-seeker for the university professoriate as against the role of the colleges as proven finishing-schools for the country and empire's future establishment. Firth failed but the twentieth century saw universities go his and Tout's way. Firth's letters to Tout are in the latter's collection in the John Rylands Library, Manchester University.

A Harding's Books:

[Deadfalls And Snares | Fox Trapping | Fur Farming | Ginseng And Other Medicinal Plants | Mink Trapping]

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