RB McDowell:RB McDOWELL, who has died aged 97, was one of the most active and productive historians of his generation.
He spent his teaching career at Trinity College Dublin, where as junior dean he acquired the reputation of being one of the college’s great eccentrics.
He was described by the Times Literary Supplementas probably knowing more than anyone else about late 18th-century Irish history. "He has one of the most judicious minds in the business," his fellow historian ATQ Stewart said, "and his scholarship has the respect of the most rigorous practitioners."
History to him was a grand Tolstoyan unrolling, rather than a cold analysis. He felt that history should be addressed to what he called “the educated world” by which he meant intelligent, alert, publicly aware individuals. But he had no time for elitism. “There can be a danger of getting into a closed room, in which the experts chat to and fro and impinge very little on the outside world. I do not want to see history in that room.”
His style of dress made him instantly recognisable – a battered pork-pie hat, crumpled suit, shabby coat and long woollen scarf that were worn in all weathers. Small of stature, he had a high-pitched voice and a rapid-fire style of delivery. As he walked, jingling a bunch of keys, he could usually be heard muttering to himself. He nevertheless managed to date some of the most attractive women in Trinity.
A compulsive newspaper reader, his rooms were described as “delightfully untidy”, with newspapers and books piled high everywhere, paintings stacked against the walls and coffee cups all over the floor. When he entertained, guests were served “mulled” wine (heated in a kettle) and given a seat beside the gas fire.
Robert Brendan McDowell was born in Belfast in 1913. His father was a tea merchant while his mother was “a very pleasant Malone Road matron”. He was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institute where his contemporaries included DB Quinn, JC Beckett and TW Moody. He entered TCD to read history and political science in 1932 and graduated with honours in 1936. When a PhD was conferred on him three years later, he was required to read his final degree papers aloud to the examiners as his writing was too difficult to decipher.
He was thankful to grow up in an area that was proudly provincial – “you were able to combine strong local attachments with cheerful, exhilarating and encouraging membership of a greater world”. His politics, rooted in the context of the British Isles, remained unionist to the end.
As a student, he immersed himself in the work of Hobbes, Locke, Machiavelli, Rousseau, JS Mill and Marx. He had a particular liking for Lecky, and admired and enjoyed Marx as an economic historian. “I was influenced by the whole concept of the economic factor in history and was fascinated by class divisions.”
On leaving Trinity, he was appointed librarian of Marsh’s Library. During the second World War, he was a temporary master at Radley. In 1945 he became a lecturer in the modern history department at TCD, and was elected to fellowship in 1951.
Well-liked and a familiar sight at student parties, he also became well known at Hist debates. To students, he presented a highly contrasting impression of cheerful enthusiasm, youthful energy, approachability and earnestness. Many would not miss his lectures for the world, despite his inevitable late arrival and his tendency to forget his notes.
He was in 1956 an unexpected choice as junior dean, responsible for accommodation in the college and for enforcing discipline. His reputation for eccentricity convinced some students that he would be a soft touch.
“They soon found out their mistake,” Conor Cruise O’Brien wrote.
“McDowell was effortlessly and effectively tough as a disciplinarian where discipline was required, while otherwise being unfailingly helpful to the majority of undergraduates who behaved themselves appropriately.”
As part of his duties, he was required to collect students’ completed census forms. Spotting the reply “Lapsed Catholic” under the heading “Religion” on one form, he asked, “What’s this, what’s this? The officials don’t want to know your spiritual odyssey, young man, they want to know what you are now.”
In the early 1960s he appeared regularly on Telefís Éireann as a member of the Postbagpanel, answering viewers' questions. He was an outstanding after-dinner speaker, and a guest at his 90th birthday celebration recalled a sparkling oration, flawlessly delivered, that held the audience spellbound.
In the 1980s he lived in London, where his life centred upon five institutions – three clubs (one a night club), the Institute of Historical Research and the London Library. He joined the Conservative party and helped out in the 1992 election campaign. On turning 90 he decided to return to Dublin.
He was widely travelled, often holidaying on the Continent as a guest of former students. One graduate remembered driving him to Monte Carlo and watching him climbing the steps of the Grand Hotel in pork-pie hat and coat, fully expecting to see him being refused entry.
A lifelong supporter of the Boat Club, he coxed a Staff Four to victory at Trinity Regatta in 1952 on the one occasion that he took to the water, and regularly attended the club’s “often pretty wild social occasions”, which he always seemed to enjoy, but he also enjoyed more formal occasions.
At a reception in the Provost’s House, during the Hist’s bicentenary after Senator Edward Kennedy had made a televised speech from the Examination Hall, Kennedy’s then wife Joan asked why academic staff members were on the platform and she was not. “Madam,” he replied, “it is a simple case of having been around for four hundred years.”
He was appointed Erasmus Smith's professor of oratory and history in 1980. His publications include: Irish Public Opinion 1750-1800 (1944); Ireland in the Age of Imperialism and Revolution (1975); The Fate of the Ulster Unionists (1997); Crisis and Decline: The Fate of the Southern Unionists (1997);and Historical Essays 1938-2001: A McDowell Miscellany (2004).
RB McDowell: born September 14th, 1913; died August 28th, 2011