Patrick Collinson at Sydney: an appreciation

Patrick Collinson at Sydney: an appreciation hi London in the early 1960s, everyone working on Tudor history was reading and talking about a long and fascinating thesis by some-one called Collinson. With a breadth of intellectual scope and a wealth of scholarly detail, it showed how committed puritans operated both openly and in secret, in then attempts to push further the Protestant reformation of the English church. This thesis which led to Patrick Collinson'sfirstbook, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 1967, had an impact on Early M o d e m English historians unequalled since Geoffrey Elton's Tudor Revolution in Government, 1953. Puritans had, of course, been a key explanatory factor in Sir John Neale's studies of the Elizabethan parliaments. Fairly crude identifiers for puritans had been used and a proper analysis of what distinguished a puritan from any. other Protestant had not been attempted. Patrick's book for the first time analysed the movement and the difficulties encountered by those seeking further reform of the church. It has retained a vital place in the history of English religion. It has not been and is unlikely to be rivalled. The announcement to the History department at Sydney in 1969 that the vacant chair, formerly held by Jack McManners, was to be filled by Patrick Collinson caused great interest, even awe, and some consternation, amongst the staff. McManners, who wrote with elegance on the French church in the eighteenth century, and was soon to become Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford, had a fitting successor. Patrick had not taken this major step without very careful consideration of its implications. Professionally, he was removing himself to the very periphery of English historical studies where research materials might be difficult to access and where teaching practices were different from those to which he was accustomed in England. What were the implications of a structure in which most students attempted only a three-year pass degree and took a minimum of three differentfirstyear subjects? H o w could a subject be taught to a professional standard in a third of the time most English students had? At the same time, he and Liz, his wife, had a young family whose schooling would be affected and both had to be satisfied that a move was in all of their best interests. In order to ascertain the facts they consulted a P A R E R G O N ns 14.1 (July 1996) viii S. M. Jack and A. Wall large number of people, including McManners and various Sydney academics on study leave in England, amongst them Sybil and Ian Jack. Once the die was cast, a weekly correspondence ensued in which further information was elicited on matters ranging from library holdings to the desirability of bringing out washing machines from England. W h e n Patrick Collinson came to the Sydney department he could hardly have anticipated how different the department would be by the time he was to leave six years later. Certainly it was to change in ways which he would not have initially expected. The new Professor's first day set the tone for his time in Sydney, and presaged a new professorial style. A tall tanned man came in to afternoon tea, something the senior professor, John Manning Ward, never did, and met everyone around the long, crowded table. And he did not then disappear. Rather, he settled down and talked genially and warmly, without the pretension or formality many had expected of a new professor. He produced jocular comment on his odyssey from Cambridge and King's College, London, via Khartoum University to Sydney. The more serious discussions began on that same afternoon. With Ros Pesman he began to lay the basis for a new approach to a first year Early M o d e m History course. Pat's manifest erudition was shared remarkably widely during his years in Sydney through his generous hospitality. Departmental social activities were revitalised by the frequent invitations to colleagues and their families to visit him and Liz at their home at Beecroft. There too Pat welcomed the European History Society for evening academic papers and discussion, thus bringing historians...