Name James Headlam-Morley | Education Eton College | |
Died 1929, Wimbledon, London, United Kingdom Books Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire, Election By Lot At Athens | ||
Sir James Wycliffe Headlam-Morley, CBE (24 December 1863 – 6 September 1929) was a British academic historian and classicist, who became a civil servant and government advisor. He changed his surname to Headlam-Morley by royal licence in 1918. He was knighted in 1929 for public service.
Contents
Family
He was the second son of a Northumbrian clergyman and the younger brother of Arthur Cayley Headlam (1862-1947), the bishop and author.
In 1893 he married Elisabeth Charlotta Henrietta Ernestina Sonntag (1866-1950), a German musician and composer, usually known as Else Headlam-Morley. The historian Agnes Headlam-Morley (1902-1986) was their daughter.
Education and career
He was educated at Eton, King's College, Cambridge, and in Germany where he studied with Treitschke and Hans Delbrück. From 1894-1900 he was Professor of Greek and Ancient History at Queen's College, London.
An influential figure, he worked on propaganda in World War I, and, when the war was over, he was involved in the drafting of the Versailles Treaty. He effectively sponsored Arnold J. Toynbee for appointment in 1924 to Chatham House. He also gathered materials on the diplomatic history of the origins of World War I, as an official production of the British government, and contributed to it, though the main editor was Harold Temperley. Historian Anna Cienciala attributes to Headlam and Sidney Edward Mezes, an academic and advisor to Woodrow Wilson and Executive Director of the Inquiry group, the 1919 proposal to make Danzig a free city.
He wrote numerous historical articles for the Encyclopædia Britannica editions of 1902 in 1911, signing them "J.W.He."