G. M. Trevelyan | |
|---|---|
 Trevelyan photographed by George Charles Beresford in 1926 | |
| 6th Chancellor of Durham University | |
| In office 1950–1957 | |
| Preceded by | The Marquess of Londonderry |
| Succeeded by | The Earl of Scarbrough |
| Master of Trinity College, Cambridge | |
| In office 1940–1951 | |
| Preceded by | Sir J. J. Thomson |
| Succeeded by | Edgar Adrian, 1st Baron Adrian |
| Regius Professor of History University of Cambridge | |
| In office 1927–1943 | |
| Preceded by | J. B. Bury |
| Succeeded by | Sir George Clark |
| Personal details | |
| Born | George Macaulay Trevelyan 16 February 1876[1] Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England |
| Died | 21 July 1962 (aged 86) Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England |
| Resting place | Holy Trinity Church, Chapel Stile, Great Langdale, Cumbria |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | 3 |
| Occupation | Historian |
George Macaulay Trevelyan OM CBE FRS FBA (16 February 1876 – 21 July 1962) was a British historian and academic. He was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1898 to 1903. He then spent more than twenty years as a full-time author. He returned to the University of Cambridge and was Regius Professor of History from 1927 to 1943. He served as Master of Trinity College from 1940 to 1951. In retirement, he was Chancellor of Durham University.
Trevelyan was the third son of Sir George Otto Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet, and great-nephew of Thomas Babington Macaulay. He espoused Macaulay's staunch liberal Whig principles in accessible works of literate narrative unfettered by scholarly neutrality, his style becoming old-fashioned in the course of his long and productive career. The historian E. H. Carr considered Trevelyan to be one of the last historians of the Whig tradition.[2]
Many of his writings promoted the Whig Party, an important British political movement from the 17th to the mid-19th centuries, as well as its successor, the Liberal Party. Whigs and Liberals believed the common people had a more positive effect on history than did royalty and that democratic government would bring about steady social progress.[3]
Trevelyan's history is engaged and partisan. Of his Garibaldi trilogy, "reeking with bias", he remarked in his essay "Bias in History": "Without bias, I should never have written them at all. For I was moved to write them by a poetical sympathy with the passions of the Italian patriots of the period, which I retrospectively shared."[3]