BIRTHDAYS | Oxonians, November 2017

Oxford Black Alumni Group Formed (2017)

November
09 | Noel Godfrey Chavasse (Trinity) 1884
09 | Francis Chavasse (Trinity and St. Peter's) 1884
15 | William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham* (Trinity) 1708
21 | Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, "Q" (Trinity) 1863
29 | C. S. Lewis* (Univ.) 1898
December
18 | Charles Wesley (Ch.Ch.) 1707
22 | James Oglethorpe* (Corpus), 1st Gov. of Georgia 1696
January
03 | J.R.R. Tolkien, CBE (Exeter) 1892
27 | Charles Dodgson, "Lewis Carroll" (Ch.Ch.) 1832
February
13 | Anna Watkins (rower for Cambridge against Oxford), 1983
21 | John Henry Cardinal Newman (Trinity) 1801
21 | W. H. Auden
March
01 John Tepper Marlin (Trinity) 1942 😏

02 Dr Seuss (Lincoln), 1904

11 Rupert Murdoch, 1931
14 Stephen Hawking (Univ), death, 2018 (born in April)
24 William Morris (Exeter), 1834

26 Robert Frost, 1926
26 A. E. Housman, 1859

April
01 Rachel Maddow (Lincoln), 1973
03 Jane Goodall, 1934

April 23. St George's
Day

05 NYC Boat Race Dinner, University Club
13 Frederick Lord North (Trinity), 1732
13 Christopher Hitchens, 1949
14 Michael Maclagan (Ch.Ch. and Trinity), 1914
15 Emma Watson, 1990
15 Joseph Lister, 1827
19 Dudley Moore, 1935
23 St George's Day
28 Harper Lee, 1926
28 Elena Kagan, 1960
May
10 | James Viscount Bryce (Trinity) 1838
20 | Melvin "Dinghy" Young (Trinity), DFC & Bar 1915
29 | Sir Basil "Gaffer" Blackwell (Merton) 1889
June 
04 | Dan Topolski (New) 1945
05 | James Smithson (Pembroke) 1765
16 | Adam Smith (Balliol) 1723
17 | John Wesley (Ch.Ch.) 1703
July
09 | Oliver Sacks, 1933
10 | E. Clerihew Bentley (Merton) 1875
27 | Hilaire Belloc, 1870
28 | Senator Bill Bradley (Worcester) 1943
August
08 | Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore (Trinity) 1605
10 | George Goodman, "Adam Smith" (BNC) 1930
11 | Lawrence Binyon (Trinity)
16 | T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia) (Jesus) 1888
19 | President Bill Clinton (Univ.)
September
07 | Peter Darrow (Trinity) 1950
October 
02 | Graham Greene, 1904
23 | Denis Woodfield (Lincoln) 1933

*Clerihews for Oxonians

BIRTH | Nov. 21–"Q", Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch

Q (Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch)

Today in 1863 was born in Cornwall, England, the anthologist and writer Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. Quiller-Couch was a Trinity College, Oxford, alumnus and sometime Don.

He started writing well-regarded verse at Oxford. He  published under the pen name "Q" and was best known as an anthologist, e.g., of The Oxford Book of English Verse (1250-1900), a best-seller for 70 years.

At his retreat in Cornwall he was an active worker in politics for the Liberal Party. He was Commodore of the Royal Fowey Yacht Club from 1911 until his death. He was knighted in 1910. In 1928 he was made a Bard of Gorseth Kernow, taking the Bardic name Marghak Cough ("Red Knight").

He wrote a book for children, Sleeping Beauty, that is among the Grolier 100 Top Classics.

Like C.S. Lewis, he was later in life lured away to Cambridge with a University lectureship and a post at Jesus College, where he remained till his death by car accident at 80 years of age.

Even by Oxbridge standards Q was considered eccentric. He should be remembered by writers, suggests Garrison Keillor, for a piece of advice that is widely quoted but rarely attributed.  Q wrote in On the Art of Writing (1916):

Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it - whole-heartedly - and delete it before sending your manuscript to press: Murder your darlings.

More Oxford bios.