Gerald Sandford Graham (born 27 April 1903 in
Sudbury Sudbury may refer to:
Places Australia
* Sudbury Reef, Queensland
Canada
* Greater Sudbury, Ontario (official name; the city continues to be known simply as Sudbury for most purposes)
** Sudbury (electoral district), one of the city's federal e ...
, Ontario – died 5 July 1988
St Leonards-on-Sea
St Leonards-on-Sea (commonly known as St Leonards) is a town and seaside resort in the Borough of Hastings in East Sussex, England. It has been part of the borough since the late 19th century and lies to the west of central Hastings. The origina ...
, East Sussex) was
Rhodes Professor of Imperial History
The Rhodes Professorship of Imperial History was one of the senior professorships in history at King's College London. Endowed by the Rhodes Trust in 1919, it was axed in 2022 over links to the colonial legacy of its namesake Cecil Rhodes. It was ...
at
King's College London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
from 1949 until his retirement in 1970. He earned a world reputation for his series of in-depth studies of the interrelationship between sea power and the development of the British empire.
In 1929, Graham married Winifred Emily Ware (1907–1990), with whom he had a son. They divorced in 1950 and he married Constance Mary Greey, with whom he had two daughters and a son.
Education
*Queen's University, B.A., 1924, M.A., 1925
*Harvard University, A.M., 1929
*Cambridge University, PhD, 1929
John Simon Guggenheim Foundation , Gerald S. Graham
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Academic, military, and naval career
On his return from Germany in 1930, Graham was appointed instructor and tutor in history at Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, where he remained until 1936, when he received an appointment as assistant professor of history at Queen's University. There, he was quickly promoted to associate professor, and then full professor.
For 1940–41, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
that resulted in Graham's first major book that showed his shift of research interests to British naval history: ''Sea Power and British North America, 1783- 1820''. Toward the end of 1941, he joined the Canadian Army, but quickly shifted to the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve
The Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve (RCNVR) was a naval reserve force of the Royal Canadian Navy, which replaced the Royal Navy Canadian Volunteer Reserve (RNCVR).
Foundation
The RCNVR was created in 1923. The organization was established ...
and was appointed an instructor lieutenant commander
Lieutenant commander (also hyphenated lieutenant-commander and abbreviated Lt Cdr, LtCdr. or LCDR) is a commissioned officer rank in many navies. The rank is superior to a lieutenant and subordinate to a commander. The corresponding rank i ...
to teach entering officers at Royal Roads Military College
Royal Roads Military College (RRMC) was a Canadian military college from 1940 to 1995, located in Hatley Park, Colwood, British Columbia, near Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
The facility now serves as the campus of Royal Roads University, a ...
. While teaching there, Graham was able to get first-hand experience of the war at sea, by spending time during academic breaks on board Canadian destroyers
In navy, naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort
larger vessels in a Naval fleet, fleet, convoy or Carrier battle group, battle group and defend them against powerful short range attack ...
in the Atlantic and in torpedo boats at Dover
Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...
. Following the allied landings in northern France in 1944, Graham was returned to the Canadian Army
The Canadian Army (french: Armée canadienne) is the command responsible for the operational readiness of the conventional ground forces of the Canadian Armed Forces. It maintains regular forces units at bases across Canada, and is also respo ...
as a major, and served with the historical section of the Canadian Army Overseas in London.
Graham's military assignment to London was the event that led him to stay in Britain for the remainder of his career. After demobilisation, he was appointed lecturer in history at Birkbeck College, London
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, and in 1949 was elected to succeed Professor Vincent Harlow
Vincent Todd Harlow (1898–1961) was a prominent English historian of the British Empire.
From 1938 to 1949, he was the second Rhodes Professor of Imperial History at King's College London. In 1950, he succeeded Reginald Coupland as the Beit P ...
as Rhodes Professor of Imperial History at King's College London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
.
Gerald Graham served as Rhodes Professor for 29-years until his retirement at the age of 67 in 1970, when he was appointed professor emeritus. While in that academic post, Graham specialised in teaching the history of the British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
in the period 1880–1932 and in British colonial history. He travelled and lectured widely through the Commonwealth.
In addition to his teaching, he worked closely with the Royal Commonwealth Society
The Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS) is a non-governmental organisation with a mission to promote the value of the Commonwealth and the values upon which it is based. The Society upholds the values of the Commonwealth Charter, promoting confli ...
, to which he had initially been elected in 1928, later becoming a Life Fellow and Vice-President. He was a member of its Library Committee from 1948 to 1955, its Imperial Studies Committee in 1952–57, and chairman of its Academic Committee, which awarded the Walter Frewen Lord Prize for the best postgraduate essay in imperial history. In addition, revived the Society's monograph series, ''Imperial Studies'', and he edited volumes XXII (1961) through XXIX (1970) of the series. Similarly in working with the Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, Graham served as general editor of its ''West African History series'', most of which became the standard works on this field.
In 1963–64, Queen's University, Belfast
, mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back?
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honoured Graham by inviting him to deliver the Wiles Lectures
Wiles is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
*Adam Wiles (born 1984), real name of Scottish singer, songwriter, DJ, and producer Calvin Harris
*Andrew Wiles, British mathematician who proved Fermat's Last Theorem
*Archie Wiles, cri ...
, which were published the next year by Cambridge University Press as ''The Politics of Naval Supremacy''. In 1967, Graham delivered the Reid Lectures at Acadia University
Acadia University is a public, predominantly undergraduate university located in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada, with some graduate programs at the master's level and one at the doctoral level. The enabling legislation consists of the Acadia ...
, which were published as ''Tides of Empire: Discursions on the Expansion of Britain Overseas''.
Immediately after Graham's retirement in London, he returned to Canada for two years as to serve as visiting professor of military and strategic studies at the University of Western Ontario
The University of Western Ontario (UWO), also known as Western University or Western, is a Public university, public research university in London, Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land, surrounded by resident ...
in 1970–1972. After this appointment, Graham returned to his permanent home in England at St Leonards-on-Sea
St Leonards-on-Sea (commonly known as St Leonards) is a town and seaside resort in the Borough of Hastings in East Sussex, England. It has been part of the borough since the late 19th century and lies to the west of central Hastings. The origina ...
, where he died at the age of 85 in 1988.
Published works
A complete bibliography of Graham's historical writings for the years 1930 to 1972 was compiled by George Metcalf and published in Graham's festschrift: Flint and Williams, eds., ''Perspectives of Empire'' (1973). The list included the following books:
* ''British Policy and Canada: a study in 18th century trade policy'' (1930)
* ''Sea power and British North America, 1783–1820: a study in British colonial policy'' (1941)
* '' Britain and Canada'' (1943)
* ''Canada: a short history'' (1950)
* ''Empire of the North Atlantic : the maritime struggle for North America'' (1950, 1958)
* ''The Walker Expedition to Quebec, 1711'', Publications of the Navy Records Society
The Navy Records Society was established in 1893 as a scholarly text publication society to publish historical documents relating to the history of the Royal Navy. Professor Sir John Knox Laughton and Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge were the key lea ...
and of the Champlain Society
The Champlain Society seeks to advance knowledge of Canadian history through the publication of scholarly books (both digital and print) of primary records of voyages, travels, correspondence, diaries and governmental documents and memoranda. The ...
, (1953)
* ''The Navy and South America, 1807–1823 : correspondence of the commanders-in-chief on the South American station,'' Navy Records Society
The Navy Records Society was established in 1893 as a scholarly text publication society to publish historical documents relating to the history of the Royal Navy. Professor Sir John Knox Laughton and Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge were the key lea ...
(1962)
* ''The politics of naval supremacy : studies in British maritime ascendancy'' (1965)
* ''Great Britain in the Indian Ocean: a study of maritime enterprise 1810–1850'' (1967)
* ''The secular abyss: an interpretation of history'' by Gerald S. Graham and John Alexander (1967)
* ''A concise history of Canada'' (1968)
* ''A concise history of the British Empire'' (1970)
* ''Tides of empire: discursions on the expansion of Britain overseas'' (1972)
* ''The Royal Navy in the War of American Independence'' (1976)
* ''The China station: war and diplomacy 1830–1860'' (1978)
References
Sources
* K.O. Dike, 'Gerald S. Graham: teacher and historian', in J.E. Flint and Glyndwyr Williams, eds., ''Perspectives of Empire: Essays presented to Gerald S. Graham'' (1973), pp. 1–8.
* John Flint, 'Graham, Gerald Sandford (1903–1988)' in ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (2006).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Graham, Gerald
1903 births
1988 deaths
20th-century Canadian historians
Writers from Greater Sudbury
Canadian naval historians
Canadian male non-fiction writers
Queen's University at Kingston alumni
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Harvard University alumni
Harvard University faculty
Academics of King's College London
Queen's University at Kingston faculty
Academics of Birkbeck, University of London
Canadian military personnel of World War II
University of Western Ontario faculty
20th-century British historians
British naval historians
Canadian expatriates in the United States
Canadian emigrants to the United Kingdom