Raymond Carr

Sir Raymond Carr
Born (1919-04-11)11 April 1919
Bath, Somerset, England
Died 19 April 2015(2015-04-19) (aged 96)
Education Brockenhurst School
Alma mater Christ Church, Oxford
Occupation Historian
Spouse(s) Sara Ann Mary Strickland
Children Adam Henry Maillard Carr
Matthew Xavier Maillard Carr
Alexander Rallion Charles Carr
Laura Selina Madeline Carr
Parent(s) Reginald Henry Maillard Carr
and Marion Maillard Carr[1]

Sir Raymond Albert Maillard Carr, FBA, FRHS, FRSL (11 April 1919 – 19 April 2015) was an English historian specializing in the history of Spain, Latin America, and Sweden. From 1968 to 1987, he was Warden of St Antony's College, Oxford.

Early life

Carr was born on 11 April 1919 in Bath, Somerset, to Reginald Henry Maillard Carr and Marion Maillard Carr.[2][3] He was educated at Brockenhurst School, then a state secondary school in the New Forest, Hampshire. He then studied at Christ Church, Oxford, where he was elected Gladstone Research Exhibitioner in 1941.[1]

Career

Carr was briefly a lecturer at University College, London, in 1945–1946, before returning to Oxford as a Fellow of All Souls College, 1946–1953.[1] He was next a Fellow of New College, 1953–1964, then Director of Oxford's Latin American Centre, 1964–1968 and the University's Professor of the History of Latin America, 1967–68.[1]

He became a Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford, in 1964, Sub-Warden of the college in 1966 and Warden in 1968, a position he held until his retirement in 1987.[1] After his retirement from Oxford, he was King Juan Carlos Professor of Spanish History at New York University in 1992.[1]

Carr's successor as Warden of St Antony's, Ralf Dahrendorf, has described Carr's tenure of the post as the College's 'Fiesta days'.[4]

As a historian and Hispanist, Carr's main interest lay in the vicissitudes of 19th and 20th century Spain,[5] and he was also a specialist in Latin American and Swedish history.[6] In the words of Sir John Elliott, " his book on Spain between 1808 and 1939 is basic to a better understanding of the era, and the later generation of historians, both within Spain and abroad, have followed up the leads that Carr gives in his book to great benefit."[5]

His Modern Spain, 1875-1980 was called by the Times Literary Supplement "a turning point in Spanish historiography - nothing comparable in scope, profundity, or perceptiveness exists."[7]

At St Antony's, he established an Iberian Centre, of which he was co-director with Joaquin Romero Maura.[8] Paul Preston wrote in 1984 of their collaboration "Between them, Carr and Romero Maura instilled an intellectual rigour into modern Spanish historiography which had previously been conspicuously lacking."[9] Carr also wrote an extensive foreword to the 1993 edition of The Spanish Labyrinth by Gerald Brenan.[10]

A Fellow of the British Academy since 1978, in 1983 he was awarded the Order of Alfonso X el Sabio by King Juan Carlos of Spain and in 1999 the Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences.[1][5]

He is considered, together with Angus Mackay and Sir John Huxtable Elliott, a major figure in developing Spanish historiography.[11]

Carr wrote for The Spectator in 2007 - "I am old-fashioned and aged enough to believe that the best history is the work of the lone individual."[12]

His recreation was fox hunting, about which he has written two books, English Fox Hunting: A History (1976), a comprehensive history of fox-hunting from medieval times, and, with his wife Sara Carr, Fox-Hunting (1982).[1][2]

Other appointments

Personal life and death

In 1950, Carr married Sara Ann Mary Strickland, daughter of Algernon Walter Strickland and of Lady Mary Pamela Madeline Sibell Charteris. Sara Strickland's maternal grandfather was Hugo Charteris, 11th Earl of Wemyss, and one of her great-grandfathers was Percy Wyndham (1835–1911), a Conservative politician who was one of The Souls.[3] The Carrs have three sons and one daughter, Adam Henry Maillard Carr (born 1951), Matthew Xavier Maillard Carr (1953-2011), Laura Selina Madeline Carr (born 1954), and Alexander Rallion Charles Carr (born 1958).[3] Their son Adam married Angela P. Barry in 1988, and their daughter Rose Angelica Mary Carr was born in 1991. Matthew, a portrait artist, married Lady Anne Mary Somerset in 1988, and their daughter Eleanor Carr was born in 1992.[3] Laura Carr married Richard E. Barrowclough in 1978 and has four children, Milo Edmond, Conrad Oliver, Theodore Charles, and Sibell Augusta.[13]

Carr died on 19 April 2015 at the age of 96.[14][15][16]

Honours

Clubs

Beefsteak and Oxford and Cambridge;[1] sometime Senior Member of the Bullingdon.

Selected works

Carr has also written many book reviews for journals, including the New York Review of Books[20] and The Spectator.[21]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 CARR, Sir (Albert) Raymond (Maillard) at Who's Who online (accessed 11 January 2008)
  2. 1 2 Carr, Sir Albert Raymond Maillard in International Who's Who of Authors and Writers online (19th edition, Europa Publications, London and New York, 2004) p. 93
  3. 1 2 3 4 Sir Albert Raymond Maillard Carr at thepeerage.com (accessed 11 January 2008)
  4. St Antony's College record 2006, p. 21 online at sant.ox.ac.uk (accessed 11 January 2008)
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Raymond Carr at fundacionprincipedeasturias.org (accessed 11 January 2008)
  6. 1 2 3 Mediterranean Studies 3 (1992): About the Contributors at mediterraneanstudies.org (accessed 11 January 2008)
  7. Spain: A History by Raymond Carr at powells.com (accessed 11 January 2008)
  8. Memories and Tributes in History Workshop Journal, Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 151-184
  9. Preston, Paul, Introduction to Revolution and War in Spain, 1931-1939, Methuen, 1984, p. 6
  10. Cambridge University Press frontmatter
  11. Delanty, Gerard Handbook of Contemporary European Social Theory. Routledge, 2006 ISBN 0-415-35518-4 ISBN 978-0-415-35518-6 at Google Books
  12. The Changing Face of Clio at spectator.co.uk (accessed 11 January 2008)
  13. Descendants of William the Conqueror at genealogy.rootsweb.com (accessed 12 January 2008)
  14. "Hispanist Raymond Carr dies at 96." Fox News. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  15. "Muere el historiador británico Raymond Carr." El País. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  16. Sir Raymond Carr. St Antony's College. Retrieved 21 April "015.
  17. The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 50764. p. 1. 30 December 1986. Retrieved 2008-01-15.
  18. The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 50873. p. 4181. 27 March 1987. Retrieved 2008-01-15.
  19. St Antony's College Newsletter 2004 online at sant.ox.ac.uk (accessed 11 January 2008)
  20. Raymond Carr at nybooks.com (accessed 11 January 2008)
  21. Raymond Carr at spectator.co.uk (accessed 11 January 2008)
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