Hugh Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton

Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton (January 15, 1914 - January 26, 2003) was a notable historian of early modern Britain and Nazi Germany.

Related Topics:
January 15 - 1914 - January 26 - 2003 - Historian - Britain - Nazi Germany

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He was born in Glanton, Northumberland, and educated at Charterhouse and at Christ Church, Oxford in the Classics. During World War Two, Trevor-Roper served as a Military Intelligence officer. In 1945, he was ordered by the British government to investigate the circumstances of Adolf Hitler's death and to rebut the claims of the Soviet government that Hitler was still alive and living somewhere in the West. The ensuring investigation resulted in Trevor-Roper's most famous book, 1947's The Last Days of Hitler.

Related Topics:
Glanton - Northumberland - Charterhouse - Christ Church, Oxford - Classics - World War Two - 1945 - Adolf Hitler - 1947

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In 1957 he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford, a post he held until 1980; subsequently he became Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge. Having achieved his first major success with The Last Days of Hitler (1947), he consolidated his reputation as an authority on the Third Reich with books such as Hitler's Table Talk (1953) and The Goebbels Diaries (1978), although his area of specialty was early modern Britain, especially the period around the English Civil War.

Related Topics:
1957 - Regius Professor of Modern History - University of Oxford - 1980 - Peterhouse, Cambridge - 1947 - Third Reich - 1953 - 1978 - English Civil War

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As a historian of early modern Britain, Trevor-Roper was most famous for his disputes with fellow historians such as Lawrence Stone and Christopher Hill, whose materialist explanations of the English Civil War he enthusiastically attacked. Trevor-Roper was a leading player over the so-called "storm over the gentry", a dispute with Christian Socialist R. H. Tawney and Stone over whatever the English gentry were in economic decline or were in economic advancement in the century before the English Civil War and regardless of whatever the gentry were rising or not, did this have anything to do with the outbreak of war in 1642. His attacks on the philosophies of history advanced by the historians Arnold J. Toynbee and Edward Hallett Carr, and on his colleague A. J. P. Taylor's account of the origins of World War II, also won Trevor-Roper wide recognition. He frequently published articles and book reviews in newspapers and magazines directed to the general public (some of which were collected in his book Historical Essays in 1957), and appeared occasionally on television.

Related Topics:
Lawrence Stone - Christopher Hill - English Civil War - R. H. Tawney - Gentry - 1642 - Arnold J. Toynbee - Edward Hallett Carr - A. J. P. Taylor - World War II - 1957

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On October 4, 1954, Trevor-Roper married Lady Alexandra Henrietta Louisa Howard-Johnston (March 9, 1907 - August 15, 1997), eldest daughter of Field Marshal the Earl Haig by his wife, the former Hon. Dorothy Maud Vivian. Lady Alexandra was a goddaughter of Queen Alexandra, and had previously been married to Rear-Admiral Clarence Dinsmore Howard-Johnston, by whom she had had three children. His brother, Patrick Trevor-Roper, was a leading eye surgeon and prominent gay rights campaigner.

Related Topics:
October 4 - 1954 - March 9 - 1907 - August 15 - 1997 - Field Marshal the Earl Haig - Queen Alexandra - Rear-Admiral Clarence Dinsmore Howard-Johnston - Patrick Trevor-Roper - Gay rights

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He was awarded a life peerage in 1979, and chose the title "Baron Dacre of Glanton".

Related Topics:
Life peerage - 1979

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At the age of sixty-seven, Trevor-Roper became Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge. His election to this position, which surprised his contemporaries, was engineered by a group of fellows led by Maurice Cowling, then the leading Peterhouse Historian. Despite this, Trevor-Roper's relations with the fellowship (and indeed the porters) of Peterhouse subsequently proved to be confrontational.

Related Topics:
Master - Peterhouse - Cambridge - Maurice Cowling - Peterhouse Historian - Porters

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The nadir of Dacre's career came in 1983, when, along with others, he authenticated the so-called Hitler Diaries, which later forensic examination proved to be a fake. This raised questions in the public mind not only about his perspicacity as a historian but also about his personal integrity, because The Sunday Times, a newspaper to which he regularly contributed book reviews and in whose parent company he held a financial interest, had already paid a considerable sum for the right to serialise the diaries. Dacre denied any dishonest motivation, insisting that he, like others, had made a genuine mistake. It was after this mistake that Private Eye nicknamed Trevor-Roper as Hugh Very-Ropey. Despite the shadow that this incident cast over his later career, he continued writing (producing Catholics, Anglicans, and Puritans in 1987, for example), and his work continued to be well received.

Related Topics:
1983 - Hitler Diaries - The Sunday Times - Private Eye - 1987

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Dacre died of cancer in a hospice in Oxford, aged 89.

Related Topics:
Cancer - Hospice - Oxford

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