J.H. Plumb and the Problem of Historical Reputation

April 2002 * Historically Speaking23 DISPATCH FROM THE UK Jeremy Black J.H. Plumb and the Problem of Historical Reputation How should we as professionals record and discuss the life, work, and influence of those who have recently died? Invariably, this is handled in a delicate fashion with laudatory remarks directed towards the deceased. This arises from a sense ofloss focused more particularly by sympathy for those who were close to the deceased. Anauraofsanctityseems to descend in the obituaries. Years, sometimes decades, laterwhen theirpapers are opened and scholarly study is directed thither a different picture can emerge. At the same time, this passage ofyears can ensure that much of the personal impression has been lost, and, more particularly, thatthecomplexity ofthe impact we all have on contemporaries is lost. to vtriThesctiTOughtS'werethrmttìito mymind by the response to the death on October 2 1, 2001, of SirJack Plumb, Professor ofModern English Historyat Cambridge, 1966-74, and Master of Christ's College, Cambridge, 1978-82. Plumb taught and supported the careers ofseveral prominentmodern historians , and his death provides an opportunityto see how historical reputation is constructed and to pose the question ofhow we should respond. Eulogistic obituaries by Plumb's former pupils appeared in the press. Simon Schama ended his in the Independent by declaring: "Should historysomehowsurvive as the great art it has been . . . should it somehow keep a place in the indispensable archive of our beaten-up world, it will be because Jack Plumb wrote and taught and lived as he did." In the Guardian, Neil McKendrickstated that Plumb won his "war" with Geoffrey Elton: "The studyofhistoryhas marched irresistibly in the direction in which he predicted and led." Yet none ofthis captures the animosity inspired bya man spoken ofas evil byRichard Cobb,Jack Gallagher, and other major scholars of their and Plumb's vintage; nor, more seriously, did such obituaries explain the tensions that this animosity focused on. Iwas puzzled bythis contrast, and decided to write an alternative appreciation, one that would focus on the scholarship, as, unlike the obituarists, I have worked on most of the material used by Plumb and have also published books on Walpole and the politics of his period. I intended to say nothing about die man. I had met him, and will come to that, but did not know him well and had no real view one way or other: although I was an undergraduate in Cambridge, Plumb no longer lectured, and I left to do graduatework in Oxford. Yet I could not help askingother scholars if they knew Plumb and was struck by their responses. I was told story after story that I shall not repeathere reflectingverynegatively onJackPlumb as a human being. None ofthis Historians anatomize others, but are not goodat seeing the role ofpersonality and patronage in their own world. mayseem ofanyconsequence, butitsuggests to me that the rivalry between Plumb and Elton discussed bythe obituarists (most fruitfully by the perceptive David Cannadine, another former protégé, in the Institute of Historical Research's electronic Reviews in History [December 2001, with an edited version in History Today February 2002]) should be placed as much in the personalas in the professional field, and that his personality may have prevented Plumb from gainingthe position and prestige he avidly pursued, not least the Regius chair atCambridge and a peerage. Position, prestige; the third is patronage. There is no doubt that Plumb's skillful and even ruthless use ofpatronage helped arouse the anger and maybe envy ofothers. This determination extended across the Atlantic. I can recall the head ofone IvyLeague department telling me about the "extraordinary pressure" brought to bear to take a Plumb candidate. There was certainly a malignity that was the other side ofhis active sponsorship ofhis own reputation and the careers of his protégés. Others were abused, damaged, and harmed. To offer a personal note: born in 1955, 1 was too young to have anything much to do with Plumb. However, in 1978 I was summoned to see him in order to be told there was no point persisting with my graduate work on Walpole's foreign policy, as he was going to publish the third volume ofhis Ufe the followingyear and anyotherworkwould be...