George Yule and British History

X George Shaw Sandon Yule (1919-2000) XI George Yule and British History This special issue of Parergon is published to celebrate the contribution to early m o d e m historical scholarship of George Shaw Sandon Yule (1919-2000), before, during and after his terms as Professor of Church History at Ormond College, University of Melbourne (1957-77) and Professor of Church History at the University of Aberdeen (1978-1988). After graduating from Scotch College, Melbourne in 1938, Yule went on to study for an Arts degree at Melbourne University. There he had the great good fortune to be among thefirstclass of students taking British History B (Honours), in the year that M a x Crawford introduced Puritanism and Liberty, A. S. P. Woodhouse's recently published edition of the Putney and Whitehall debates, as prescribed text for this course. George recalled in 1998 that 'These unique documents were very close to Crawford's main historical interests . . . uncovering controversies over democracy, republicanism and religious toleration between opponents who had a great deal in common, especially in the Whitehall debate, and yet were in serious disagreement'. The complexity, intensity and subtlety of these arguments between the N e w Model Army's commanding officers and representatives of the rank-and-file troopers resonated not only with Crawford and his newly-appointed lecturer Kathleen Fitzpatrick, but also with their students. After all, the issues and conflicts canvassed in 1647 and 1649 - of freedom and authority, ideology, power, and individual autonomy - were still being played out, and on a world stage. Moreover, Crawford and Fitzpatrick were outstanding teachers; 60 years later George recalled 'the feeling of anticipation I had when I went to attend M a x Crawford's lectures, and rarely was I disappointed'.2 The remarkable, in many respects path-breaking, first-year course on early m o d e m British history which they constructed during these formative years would inspire several generations of Melbourne students throughout the 1940s and '50s, including an impressive tally of graduates who later went on to publish and teach in that same field. 1 G. Yule, 'Max Crawford, Puritanism and the Reformation', in Max Crawford's ofHistory, ed. Stuart Macintyre and Peter McPhee (History Department, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 2000), pp. 59-62 at 62. 2 Ibid., p. 59. Xll Foremost among these was George Yule, who in 1947 submitted a thesis of some 80,000 words on 'The Development ofPuritanism' for the degree of Master of Arts. Soon acquiring semi-legendary status amongfirst-yearhistory students at Melbourne, Yule's thesis was among the earliest sustained pieces of historical research and writing on an early m o d e m topic ever completed from an Australian base, and almost certainly thefirstto have been awarded a higher degree by an Australian university. Although written following a year's research at Oxford on a Rockefeller studentship, his 1958 monograph, The Independents in the English Civil War (whose dust-jacket and spine proudly bear the Melbourne University Press imprint) was also a trail-blazing feat for an Australian early modernist, perhaps preceded only by G. V. Portus's Caritas Anglicana (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1912). For this was still the era of the gentleman/lady-scholar/ teacher, who regarded 'publish or perish' as a barbarous American irrelevance, not a career imperative. From our current embattled, performance-monitored academic vantage point, that attitude may well seem to have more going for i t than once appeared. But George's publications certainly had nothing to do with self-promoting academic careerism. Since the 1950s our scholarly environment has been transformed by photocopying, jetflights,computers and the Internet. Graduate studies in nonAustralasian historical topics are no longer a rarity in Australian and N e w Zealand universities. But w e should not forget those who led the way in a less technologically sophisticated age. While George may never have gathered a postgraduate entourage around him, his enquiring mind and generosity of spirit touched a great many, students and colleagues alike. A m o n g four brief tributes to George's life and work published in a previous issue of Parergon (ns 18:3, July 2001, pp. xi-xviii...