Russell’s dismissal from Trinity: a study in high table politics

Russell's dismissal from Trinity: a study in high table politics by Paul Delany RUSSELL'S DISMISSAL FROM Trinity College in 1916 has now passed into legend as one of the most notorious infringements of academic freedom since Socrates was given hemlock. Our knowledge of this episode has come largely from one sourc~, G.H. Hardy's Bertrand Russell and Trinity: a College Controversy of the Last War. l Recently, the Bertrand Russell Archives acquired new evidence on the struggle behind the scenes at Trinity over Russell's dismissal.2This material does not challenge the fundamentals of Hardy's narrative, but it makes possible a less reticent account of the affair with much new information about two key participants: Hardy himself and A.N. Whitehead. To read Bertrand Russell and Trinity well, one must know how to read between the lines. Hardy was Russell's most active and dedicated supporter in 1916, but not at all his most visible one. In 1919 he again promoted Russell's reinstatement, and in 1941, when he wrote his pamphlet , he was organizing a third campaign to get Russell back. Each time, Hardy knew that the best way to succeed was to keep several 1 Privately printed by Camhridge University Press, 1942; reissued in facsimile by Cambridge , 1970, with a Foreword by C.D. Broad. A typescript of Hardy's pamphlet in the Russell Archives has significant differences from the published version; see particularly n. 47 below. Additional material on Russell's dismissal may be found in Ronald W. Clark, The Life of Bertrand Russell (London: Jonathan Cape and Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1975), and in Jo Vellacott, Bertrand Russell and the Pacifists in the First World War (New York: St. Martin's. Press, 1980). For permission to quote from unpublished letters I am indebted to Mrs. T. North Whitehead and to the London Mathematical Society (for G.H. Hardy). 2 Donation by Christopher Cornfprd of papers belonging to his father, F.M. Cornford. See Russell, n.s. 5 (Winter 1985): 98. 39 40 Russell summer 1986 arm's lengths between himself and his candidate. In writing about the events of 1916-19 he preserved a scrupulously cool tone, he defined the struggle as primarily one between youth and age, and he said practically nothing about Russell's current battles. Russell had been dismissed from the City College of New York in 1940 for "immorality", before he ever met a class. He then accepted a lecturing position from the eccentric Albert Barnes, but by early 1941 he had quarrelled with his employer and was homesick for England. Hardy's pamphlet was part of a broad campaign of wirepulling that culminated in the offer to Russell of a Trinity Fellowship in the autumn of 1943. Russell came back-to the rooms previously accupied by Newton-and remained a Fellow of Trinity for the rest of his life. He had gone there to sit a scholarship examination in December 1889, so his connection with Trinity lasted eighty years. Like many of his relationships, this one fluctuated between times of passionate devotion and times when both parties were thoroughly exasperated with each other. But 1916 was clearly the stormiest year of all. 1 On 5 June 1916 Russell was convicted for writing a pamphlet "likely to prejudice the recruiting and discipline of his Majesty's forces", and sentenced to a fine of £100 plus £10 costs. An appeal against the conviction failed on 29 June. The Council of Trinity, the governing board of the College, were required by the statutes to meet if a Fellow was convicted "of a crime of whatever nature or description". On Tuesday 1 1 July they met to decide what to do about Russell. The Council were empowered (but not obliged) to expel delinquent Fellows by a vote of seven members, of whom the Master had to be one, out of thirteen. The ele,:en who attended voted unanimously to remove Russell from his lectureship. A substantial minority wanted even stronger action, presumably the formal removal of Russell's name from the College books.3 The Master was H. Montagu Butler: eighty-three years old, former Dean of Gloucester, former Chairman of the Church...