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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2017
The point of origin of the ‘Irish historiographical revolution’ initiated by T. W. Moody and R. D. Edwards in the 1930s, which issued, among other things, in the foundation of Irish Historical Studies, is customarily located in their experiences together as research students in London University’s Institute of Historical Research. Hitherto, we have known little or nothing of those experiences beyond the recollections of the two principals themselves. This article uses the Institute’s own archive, and other contemporary documentary evidence, including surviving letters from Moody to Edwards, to elucidate the precise influence of the Institute and its staff in moulding their outlook. Rather than asserting some form of ideological indoctrination – for example in propagating an ethos of ‘value-free’ history writing – it argues that what was important was the example of the Institute’s institutional structures (including its Bulletin), which Moody and Edwards determined to replicate in Ireland; and that these structures, emphasising collaboration between historical researchers in pursuit of a common purpose, were themselves of the first importance in influencing the aspiration to create an Irish history free from confessional bias and overt expressions of political prejudice.
1 Report of A.G.M. in Archivium Hibernicum, ii (1913), pp 347–9; Michael Kennedy and Deirdre MacMahon, Reconstructing Ireland’s past: a history of the Irish Manuscripts Commission (Dublin, 2009).
2 One might add to this list the biennial Irish Conference of Historians and Conference of Irish Historians; the Irish Committee of Historical Sciences, whose function was to represent the Irish academic profession on the world stage; the Thomas Davis lectures; the multi-authored and intentionally authoritative A new history of Ireland (along the lines of the Cambridge Modern History and New Cambridge Modern History); and the Department of Archives at University College Dublin and its training programme for archivists.
3 R. F. Foster, ‘History and the Irish question’ in R. Hist. Soc. Trans., ser. 5, xxxiii (1983), pp 187–8.
4 The locus classicus of this species of argument is Brendan Bradshaw, ‘Nationalism and political scholarship in modern Ireland’ in I.H.S., xxvi, no. 104 (Nov. 1989), pp 329–51. More generally, on the debate over ‘revisionism’, see Ciaran Brady (ed.), Interpreting Irish history: the debate on historical revisionism (Dublin, 1994); and D. G. Boyce and Alan O’Day (eds), The making of modern Irish history: revisionism and the revisionist controversy (London, 1996).
5 ‘Interview: a man with a mission’ in History Ireland, i, no. 1 (Spring 1993), p. 53.
6 There may have been an element of self-preservation here: see below, n. 44.
7 See Michael Bentley, Modernizing England’s past: English historiography in the age of modernism, 1870–1970 (Cambridge, 2005), esp. ch. 1. Bentley has commented briefly on developments in Irish historical writing in ‘Shape and pattern in British historical writing’ in Stuart Macintyre, Juan Maigushca and Attila Pók (eds), The Oxford history of historical writing, iv: 1800–1945 (Oxford, 2011), pp 217–18.
8 Some sections of the Moody papers have been catalogued, including material relating directly to the foundation and early issues of Irish Historical Studies, but not the correspondence which might cast light on Moody’s experience at the I.H.R., and his relationships with his supervisor, other staff and fellow students.
9 The phrase comes from Debra Birch and Joyce M. Horn, The history laboratory: the Institute of Historical Research, 1921–96 (London, 1996).
10 For Pollard see Patrick Collinson, ‘Pollard, Albert Frederick (1869–1948)’, in Oxford D.N.B.
11 D. W. Hayton, ‘Colonel Wedgwood and the historians’ in Historical Research, lxxxiv (2011), pp 328–55.
12 Guy Parsloe, ‘Recollections of the Institute, 1922–43’ in Bull. I.H.R., xliv (1971), p. 270.
13 Ibid., p. 271.
14 Ibid., p. 270.
15 Before the First World War Newton had made a pioneering excursion into prosopography but had not followed this up: A. P. Newton, The colonising activities of the English Puritans (New Haven & London, 1914), pp 59–79; Lawrence Stone, ‘Prosopography’ in Daedalus, c (1971), pp 48–9. For Seton-Watson, see Henry Wickham Steed, ‘Watson, Robert William Seton- (1879–1951)’, rev. R. J. W. Evans, in Oxford D.N.B., and G. H. Bolsover, ‘Robert William Seton-Watson, 1879–1951’ in Proc. Brit. Acad., xxxvii (1951), pp 345–58. For attendance at his seminar see School of Oriental and African Studies, students’ register 1924–39 (I.H.R. archives).
16 Maxine Berg, A woman in history: Eileen Power, 1889–1940 (Cambridge, 1996), p. 162.
17 For Tawney see Lawrence Goldman, The life of R. H. Tawney: socialism and history (London, 2013); and J. M. Winter, History and society: essays by R. H. Tawney (London, 1978).
18 London School of Economics, students’ register 1924–62 (I.H.R. archives); University College, London, students’ register 1921–31 (ibid.).
19 When Namier visited Dublin and Belfast in 1953, he does not seem to have been particularly impressed by the historians he met, including J. C. Beckett, Moody and Edwards. There were occasional exceptions, such as R. B. McDowell in Dublin and Kenneth Darwin in Belfast, but in general he considered Ireland to be ‘a backwater, unless you wish to study Irish history’: Namier to Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, 15 Apr. 1953 (History of Parliament Trust archives, N–54); same to Lucy Sutherland, 24 Nov. 1953 (Bodl., Sutherland papers, box 9); same to J. B. Owen, 26 Jan. 1956 (History of Parliament Trust archives, N–64); same to P. D. G. Thomas, 7 Oct. 1958 (ibid., N–67).
20 Cronne to Claude Jenkins, 22 Jan. 1931 (Lambeth Palace Library, Jenkins papers, MS 1634, ff 41–5). For Todd and his influence see L. A. Clarkson, ‘James Eadie Todd and the school of history at the Queen’s University of Belfast’ in I.H.S., xli, no. 159 (May 2017), pp 22–40. I am grateful to Professor Clarkson for permitting me to see this paper in advance of publication.
21 Admission forms, 1928–31 (I.H.R. archives).
22 Parsloe, ‘Recollections’, p. 274.
23 University College, London, students’ register, 1921–31 (I.H.R. archives); King’s College, London, students’ register, 1921–32 (ibid.); London School of Economics, students’ register, 1924–62 (ibid.).
24 University College, London, students’ register, 1921–31 (ibid.); London School of Economics, students’ register, 1924–62 (ibid.).
25 Moody to Parsloe, 19, 24 Feb. 1939, Parsloe to Moody, 17 Feb. 1939 (ibid., X19); Moody to Pollard, 19 Feb. 1939 (University of London Library, Senate House, Pollard papers, MS 890, box 6b).
26 Copies available in U.C.D. Library. Edwards won the Travelling Studentship prize in 1931 and the Travelling Studentship itself in 1932 (A century of scholarship: travelling students of the National University of Ireland (Dublin 2008), p. 17). In 1933 he submitted a further long essay to the Department of History at U.C.D. for the Coyne Memorial Scholarship, on ‘The history of penal laws against Catholics in Ireland from 1534 to 1603’ (copy in U.C.D. Library).
27 R. W. D. Edwards, ‘T. W. Moody and the origins of Irish Historical Studies: a biographical memoir’ in I.H.S., xxxvi, no. 101 (May 1988), p. 1.
28 The thesis itself is not held with other London Ph.D. theses of the same period, at the I.H.R., but for some reason was kept in Senate House Library and has since been returned to King’s College, London. I have not yet been able to locate or consult it there.
29 Bound volumes of admission forms, 1928–31, 1931–5 (I.H.R. archives).
30 Private information.
31 Edwards to Pollard, 9 Dec. 1931 (Univ. of London Lib., MS 890, box 6b).
32 Pollard to Edwards, 15 Dec. 1931 (ibid.).
33 Moody to Edwards, 2 Sept. 1935 (U.C.D.A., Edwards papers, LA22/847); Times Literary Supplement, 1 Aug. 1935 (information on authorship has been taken from the database ‘TLS Historical Archive’ (http://gale.cengage.co.uk/tls-historical-archive-19022005.aspx) (26 Nov. 2015)).
34 King’s College, London, students’ register, 1921–32 (I.H.R. archives).
35 Moody to Edwards, 23 May 1933 (U.C.D.A., Edwards papers, LA22/847).
36 Moody to Parsloe, 23 Aug. 1932, 14 Nov. 1933, 28 Apr. 1934, 27 Dec. 1937 (I.H.R. archives, X19); Moody to Marjorie Blatcher, 3 Jan. 1935 (ibid.); Parsloe to Moody, 3, 9 Oct. 1935 (ibid.).
37 Moody to Edwards, 2 Sept. 1935 (U.C.D.A., LA 22/847); Edwards to A. Taylor Milne, 16 Oct. 1946 (I.H.R. archives, Y71).
38 Though in Moody’s case his greatest thanks were reserved for Todd, to whom he dedicated his book.
39 See, for example, Claude Jenkins, ‘Sixteenth century studies’ in Church Quarterly Review, ciii (1927), pp 96–114.
40 Lambeth Palace Library, Jenkins papers, general correspondence, MS 1634.
41 F. S. L. Lyons, ‘“T.W.M.”’ in idem and R. A. J. Hawkins (eds), Ireland under the Union: varieties of tension. Essays in honour of T. W. Moody (Oxford, 1980), p. 4.
42 Held in the London School of Economics.
43 Moody to Edwards, 23 May 1933 (U.C.D.A., LA22/847); Edwards, Church and state in Tudor Ireland, esp. pp 124, 171, 178, 329, 331, 332.
44 Originally published in the Irish Monthly in May 1935 and reprinted in an editorial in the Catholic Bulletin, xxv, no. 6 (June, 1935), pp 442–3. See Paul Bew, ‘Politics and the writing of Irish history: the Irish case’ in Maurna Crozier and Richard Froggatt (eds), What made now in Northern Ireland (Belfast, 2008) pp 40–1. I owe these references to Dr Marie Coleman. Moody found Corcoran’s outburst ‘rather ludicrous’ and hoped that Edwards could ‘deal with it, but without prejudicing your own position’ (Moody to Edwards, 2 Sept. 1935 (U.C.D.A., LA 22/847)).
45 See U.C.D.A., LA22/404–6, 848–50.
46 Edwards, ‘Moody and the origins of Irish Historical Studies’, p. 1.
47 Moody to Parsloe, 23 Nov. 1935 (I.H.R. archives, Y19).
48 Moody and Edwards. ‘Preface’ in I.H.S., i, no. 1 (Mar. 1938), p. 1. The fact of Moody’s prime responsibility was recorded in Edwards, ‘Moody and the origins of Irish Historical Studies’, p. 2, and would seem to be confirmed by the evidence of a surviving draft, in U.C.D.A., LA22/404. Twenty years later, in an editorial marking Edwards’s retirement from the joint editorship, Moody continued to assert the co-operative nature of history-writing. The ‘renaissance of Irish history’ he now dated back a generation, to ‘Eoin MacNeill and Edmund Curtis, Robert Dunlop, W. F. T. Butler and Philip Wilson, Mary Hayden and Constantia Maxwell’, but observed that ‘these scholars worked largely in isolation’ (T. W. Moody, ‘Twenty years after’ in I.H.S., xi, no. 4 (Mar. 1958), p. 1).
49 Draft constitution, [1936] (P.R.O.N.I., Ulster Society for Irish Historical Studies papers, D3157/1/1).
50 Ciaran Brady, ‘“Constructive and instrumental”: the dilemma of Ireland’s first “new historians”’ in idem (ed.), Interpreting Irish history: the debate on historical revisionism (Dublin, 1994), p. 19.
51 Moody, ‘Twenty years after’, p. 2.
52 Moody to Edwards, 22 Nov. 1937 (U.C.D.A., LA22/404). For Simms, see Fionnuala Carson Williams, ‘Simms, Samuel (1894–1967)’, in D.I.B.
53 Moody to Edwards, 2 Jan. 1938 (U.C.D.A., LA22/404).
54 Moody & Edwards, ‘Preface’, p. [1].
55 Moody to Edwards, 4 Oct. 1937 (U.C.D.A., LA22/848); ‘But the point to be remembered is this: we are aiming at doing for Ireland what the Bull. of the IHR, History, and the EHR together do for GB.’
56 See for example, Moody to Edwards, 14, 17, 26 Oct. 1937 (U.C.D.A., LA22/404).
57 Moody to Edwards, 2 Jan. 1938 (ibid.).
58 Moody to Parsloe, 11 June 1938, Parsloe to Moody, 15 June 1938 (I.H.R. archives, Y55).
59 Moody to Parsloe, 27 Dec. 1937, 29 Jan. 1938 (ibid.).
60 Moody to Parsloe, 19, 24 Feb. 1939, Parsloe to Moody, 17 Feb. 1939 (ibid.); Moody to Pollard 19 Feb. 1939 (Univ. of London Lib., Pollard papers, MS 890, box 6b).
61 Moody & Edwards, ‘Preface’, pp [1]–2.
62 Included in Pollard to Moody, 22 Feb. 1939 (Univ. of London Lib., Pollard papers, MS 890, box 6b).
63 U.C.D.A., Edwards papers, V/CA/ii.
64 See above, p. 15. Emphasis added.
65 Times Literary Supplement, 1 Aug. 1935.
66 This is a heavily revised version of a paper delivered at a conference held at the Royal Irish Academy on 22 November 2013 to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of the first issue of Irish Historical Studies. I am obliged to members of the audience for their comments and suggestions, especially my former co-editor on the journal, Professor Ciaran Brady. Professor Marie Therese Flanagan read and commented very helpfully on a previous draft. I must also thank Ms Mary Clapinson for permission to consult Dame Lucy Sutherland’s papers, the Director of the History of Parliament, Dr Paul Seaward, for permission to use the History of Parliament Trust archives, Professor Jane Winters and the library staff of the Institute of Historical Research for help in identifying relevant documents, and the then Director of the Institute, Professor Miles Taylor, for permission to make use of material from the Institute’s archive.
