Sir Roger Thomas Baldwin Fulford (24 November 1902 – 18 May 1983) was an English journalist, historian, writer and politician.
In the 1930s, he completed the editing of the standard edition of the diaries of Charles Greville. From the 1930s to the 1960s, he wrote several important biographies and other works. Between 1964 and 1981 he edited five volumes of letters between
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...
and the
Princess Royal
Princess Royal is a style customarily (but not automatically) awarded by a British monarch to their eldest daughter. Although purely honorary, it is the highest honour that may be given to a female member of the royal family. There have been se ...
. He was President of the
Liberal Party
The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left.
__TOC__ Active liberal parties
This is a li ...
from 1964 to 1965.
Life and career
Fulford was the younger son of Canon Frederick John Fulford, vicar of Flaxley,
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean.
The county town is the city of Gl ...
, and his wife, Emily Constance (née Ellis).Hart-Davis, Rupert "Fulford, Sir Roger Thomas Baldwin (1902–1983)" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,'' Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, January 2008, accessed 22 November 2008] Fulford was educated at
Lancing College
Lancing College is a public school (English independent day and boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in southern England, UK. The school is located in West Sussex, east of Worthing near the village of Lancing, on the south coast of England. ...
and
Worcester College, Oxford University
Worcester College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in 1714 by the benefaction of Sir Thomas Cookes, 2nd Baronet (1648–1701) of Norgrove, Worcestershire, whose coat of arms w ...
. In 1932, he qualified as a barrister, but never practised law.
From 1933, Fulford was a journalist with ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
,'' where he remained for many years.''The Times'' obituary, 19 May 1983, p. 14 From 1937 to 1948, he was a part-time lecturer in English at King's College London."Fulford, Sir Roger (Thomas Baldwin)" ''Who Was Who, 1920–2007'', A & C Black, London; online edn, Oxford University Press, December 2007, accessed 23 November 2008
From 1941 to 1942, Fulford worked in
MI5
The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), G ...
. From 1942 to 1945, he was assistant private secretary to Sir Archibald Sinclair, the Secretary of State for Air. He stood as a Liberal Party candidate in three general elections: in 1929, he came second at Woodbridge; in 1945, he came third at
Holderness
Holderness is an area of the East Riding of Yorkshire, on the north-east coast of England. An area of rich agricultural land, Holderness was marshland until it was drained in the Middle Ages. Topographically, Holderness has more in common wit ...
; and, in 1950, he came third at
Rochdale
Rochdale ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, at the foothills of the South Pennines in the dale on the River Roch, northwest of Oldham and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough ...
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.The Liberal Case ' for the general election of 1959, published alongside the contributions of
Lord Hailsham
Viscount Hailsham, of Hailsham in the County of Sussex, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1929 for the lawyer and Conservative politician Douglas Hogg, 1st Baron Hailsham, who twice served as Lord High Chancello ...
and Roy Jenkins for the other two national parties. ''The Times'' called Fulford's piece "a highly civilised credo". In 1970, he was appointed C.V.O. and he was knighted in 1980.
In 1937 Fulford married Sibell Eleanor Maud née Adeane, widow of the Hon. Edward James Kay-Shuttleworth (d. 1917) and of the Rev. Hon. Charles Frederick Lyttelton (d. 1931). There were no children. Fulford was a member of The Literary Society and a committee member of the
London Library
The London Library is an independent lending library in London, established in 1841. It was founded on the initiative of Thomas Carlyle, who was dissatisfied with some of the policies at the British Museum Library. It is located at 14 St James' ...
.Hart-Davis, letters of 29 May and 15 September 1957
Fulford died at his home, Barbon Manor, near
Carnforth
Carnforth is a market town and civil parish in the City of Lancaster in Lancashire, England, situated at the north-east end of Morecambe Bay. The parish of Carnforth had a population of 5,560 in the 2011 census, an increase from the 5,350 reco ...
, aged 80.
Writings
Away from journalism, Fulford's first major literary work was as editor of the diaries of Charles Greville, in succession to
Lytton Strachey
Giles Lytton Strachey (; 1 March 1880 – 21 January 1932) was an English writer and critic. A founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of '' Eminent Victorians'', he established a new form of biography in which psychological insight ...
, who died in 1932 leaving the work unfinished. The memoirs were eventually published in ten volumes, beginning in 1938.
Fulford's subsequent works concentrated on the same late Hanoverian period, beginning with a study of the lives of the six younger sons of George III (''Royal Dukes'', 1933) and their elder brother (''George the Fourth'', 1935), the Prince Consort (1949) and
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...
(1951), followed by a study of a longer period in ''Hanover to Windsor'' (1960). In 1962 he published a biography of Samuel Whitbread, and in 1967 ''The Trial of Queen Caroline''. Finally, he edited five volumes of the correspondence between Queen Victoria and her eldest daughter, the
Empress Frederick
Victoria, Princess Royal (Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa; 21 November 1840 – 5 August 1901) was German Empress and Queen of Prussia as the wife of German Emperor Frederick III. She was the eldest child of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdo ...
of Germany: ''Dearest Child'' (1964), ''Dearest Mama'' (1968), ''Your Dear Letter'' (1971), ''Darling Child'' (1976), and ''Beloved Mama'' (1981).
Beyond his customary historical period, he published a
satire
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...
of a political careerist, ''The Right Honourable Gentleman'' (1945), a history of Glyn's Bank (1953), and ''Votes for Women'' (1957), a study of the suffragettes, which won a prize of £5,000 from ''
The Evening Standard
The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format.
In October 2009, after bei ...
''.
Notes
References
*
Hart-Davis, Rupert
Sir Rupert Charles Hart-Davis (28 August 1907 – 8 December 1999) was an English publisher and editor. He founded the publishing company Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd. As a biographer, he is remembered for his ''Hugh Walpole'' (1952), as an editor, f ...