The 2026 biennial history lecture – the Whitting Lecture – named in memory of former St Paul’s Head of History, Philip Whitting will this year be delivered by Old Pauline Dr Richard Davenport-Hines (1967-71). This evening will be an excellent opportunity for all those with a passion for history to learn more about the history of St Paul’s.
Richard Davenport-Hines was a Pauline in a momentous phase of the school’s history. He reflects on the intellectual consequences of the move from the West Kensington site to Barnes. Tom Howarth’s High Mastership (1962-73) was a turning point for St Paul’s. He was bent on educating a new elite, pursued excellence, brought a new liberality and intellectual power to the school. His educational philosophy was both enriching and the source of resentment. Tom was an ironical, civilized, unhappy man: his ideas challenge and unsettle the received ideas of today.
Richard Davenport-Hines (1967-71) is a retired Fellow of All Souls College, a former trustee of the Royal Literary Fund, and a past winner of the Wolfson Prize for History. He is the biographer of W. H. Auden, Marcel Proust, Maynard Keynes, and King Edward VII; edited the diaries and correspondence of Hugh Trevor-Roper; has reviewed for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Spectator and New Statesman, and all the quality London Sunday papers. His historical studies range from drugs dependency and trafficking, international arms dealing, sexually transmitted diseases, the Gothic revival, communist espionage, Oxford’s intelligentsia, and Conservative thinking.
Find out more about other St Paul’s Talk and Masterclasses here.