Goldman, Lawrence 1957–

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Goldman, Lawrence 1957–

PERSONAL:

Born 1957. Education: Oxford University, M.A.; Cambridge University, M.A., Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of History, St. Peter's College, Oxford University, New Inn Hall St., Oxford OX1 2DL, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, educator. University of Oxford, St. Peter's College, Oxford, England, half-time fellow and tutor in modern history; Oxford University Press, Oxford, editor of Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004—.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) The Blind Victorian: Henry Fawcett and British Liberalism, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1989.

Dons and Workers: Oxford and Adult Education since 1850, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1995.

Science, Reform, and Politics in Victorian Britain: The Social Science Association, 1857-1886, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2002.

(Editor) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2004.

(Editor, with Peter Ghosh) Politics and Culture in Victorian Britain: Essays in Memory of Colin Matthew, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to books, including Articulating America: Fashioning a National Political Culture in Early America: Essays in Honor of J.R. Pole, edited by Rebecca Starr, Rowman & Littlefield (Lanham, MD), 2000. Contributor to journals, including English Historical Review, Past and Present, and Historical Journal.

SIDELIGHTS:

Lawrence Goldman is a half-time fellow and tutor in modern history at St. Peter's College, Oxford University. He also serves as the editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Among his published works are The Blind Victorian: Henry Fawcett and British Liberalism, Dons and Workers: Oxford and Adult Education since 1850, Science, Reform, and Politics in Victorian Britain: The Social Science Association, 1857-1886, and Politics and Culture in Victorian Britain: Essays in Memory of Colin Matthew.

In The Blind Victorian, Goldman gathers essays on the nineteenth-century English statesman Henry Fawcett. Fawcett, the first blind member of the English parliament, rose from a poor background to become a professor at Cambridge University, a minister in William Gladstone's second government, and a member of the Liberal party who often criticized party leadership and promoted organized labor, popular education, and the rights of women and colonial subjects. The Blind Victorian covers not only Fawcett's remarkable political career but also his personal life, including his marriage to the feminist Millicent Garrett Fawcett. "Fawcett's celebrated triumph over physical disability," Goldman wrote in the book's preface, "and his place at the forefront of a developing politics of mass participation—the keys to his popularity—are very different claims to fame, but both brought him recognition and celebrity during his life and may be considered sufficient excuses for a more modern assessment of his career." Writing in the English Historical Review, Richard Shannon called The Blind Victorian "an excellent book" that "contributes crucial new insights."

Goldman chronicles the history of university adult education in England in Dons and Workers. He especially focuses on the University of Oxford's role in this movement, and details the relatively long relationship between English scholars and the working class. As Goldman states in the introduction: "This book is a history of the relationship between the University of Oxford and adult education since the mid-nineteenth century. It thus explores one of the less well-known aspects of the University's past—one that may be of surprise to some who feel they know the institution and to many more who hold one of several popular images of Oxford. This is also a study of the relationship between intellectuals and the working class in Britain, or perhaps more accurately, between a specific section of intellectuals and a specific section of workers. The relationship is described historically as it has developed through the shared enterprise of adult education." R.C. Whiting concluded in the English Historical Review that "Goldman has raised some stimulating questions about the role of education in the development of the Labour Movement as well as providing a detailed history of Oxford's place in adult education."

In his book Science, Reform, and Politics in Victorian Britain, Goldman presents the history of an organization that played a pivotal role in introducing social legislation in late nineteenth century England. At first created to reform the English legal system, the Social Science Association became involved in education, public health, and industrial relations issues as well. At a time when British political parties were unable to formulate needed reforms, the Social Science Association was able to publicly debate issues and propose social policy. Writing in the book's introduction, Goldman explains: "Its annual meetings captured national attention for a generation. Held in all the major cities of Britain and attended by thousands, they were a focus for social and institutional reform in mid-Victorian Britain. The Social Science Association was an open forum for the discussion of all aspects of social policy…. Because of the breadth of its interests and the historical significance of the people who took part in its discussions, the Social Science Association lends itself to many different historical approaches and treatments. It provides a window through which to observe the mid-Victorian generation and it offers an opportunity to generalise about the age as a whole." According to Thomas William Heyck in the Historian, Goldman has "made a very useful contribution to the history of the Victorian public sphere." Science, Reform, and Politics in Victorian Britain is, wrote Gillian Sutherland in the English Historical Review, "an important study … and one which deserves the widest readership." "Goldman's intelligent study … is a valuable contribution to [the] effort to develop a more vivid and synoptic view of how politics worked in the high-Victorian decades," Philip Harding concluded in Victorian Studies. Ronald K. Huch in Albion called Science, Reform, and Politics in Victorian Britain "magnificent in scope and relentlessly revealing about mid-Victorian culture, society, and politics. [Goldman] achieves the highest standards of scholarship and historical writing."

With Peter Ghosh, Goldman edited Politics and Culture in Victorian Britain. Matthew was an Oxford scholar known for his writings on British political figure William Gladstone, including a biography. Matthew also oversaw the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, widening its coverage to include important figures in the fields of religion, economics, and history. The collected essays, written by history scholars from Oxford, focus on Matthew's life and career, on his writings about Gladstone, and on late-Victorian and Edwardian England. Goldman and coeditor Peter Ghosh explained in the book: "The intellectual engagement and respect aroused by Colin Matthew were so great and so widespread across several continents, that there could easily be a series of volumes written in his memory…. We cannot of course say what he would have thought of our efforts; but we may be sure that if he were sitting in the King's Arms as usual on a Saturday morning, taking coffee and chewing the cud with one or two old friends, he would, after a suitable delay, have uttered a quite definite and suitably pithy dictum." A critic for the Contemporary Review called the book "something of a pot pourri but the essays are generally of a high quality." Writing in Victorian Studies, Walter L. Arnstein called Politics and Culture in Victorian Britain a combination "of scrupulously documented scholarship and a happy absence of theoretical jargon."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Albion, winter, 2004, Ronald K. Huch, review of Science, Reform, and Politics in Victorian Britain: The Social Science Association, 1857-1886, p. 688.

British Journal of Visual Impairment, Volume 8, number 1, 1990, Molly Loughnane, review of The Blind Victorian: Henry Fawcett and British Liberalism, pp. 29-30.

Contemporary Review, autumn, 2006, review of Politics and Culture in Victorian Britain: Essays in Memory of Colin Matthew, p. 405.

English Historical Review, January, 1993, Richard Shannon, review of The Blind Victorian, p. 239; February, 1998, R.C. Whiting, review of Dons and Workers: Oxford and Adult Education since 1850, p. 256; February, 2004, Gillian Sutherland, review of Science, Reform, and Politics in Victorian Britain, p. 148.

Historian, summer, 2004, Thomas William Heyck, review of Science, Reform, and Politics in Victorian Britain, p. 395.

History Today, March, 2006, review of Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, p. 9; July, 2007, Lawrence Goldman, "Group Analysis: Have the British Always Been a Nation of Networkers?," p. 18.

Isis, December, 2003, Greta Jones, review of Science, Reform, and Politics in Victorian Britain, p. 741.

Journal of Modern History, March, 2005, Louise Blakeney Williams, review of Science, Reform, and Politics in Victorian Britain, p. 178.

Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Volume 45, 2005, Noah Heringman, review of Science, Reform, and Politics in Victorian Britain.

Twentieth Century British History, Volume 11, number 2, 2000, Jonathan Rose, review of Dons and Workers, pp. 225-227.

Victorian Studies, autumn, 2003, Philip Harling, review of Science, Reform, and Politics in Victorian Britain, p. 141; autumn, 2007, Walter L. Arnstein, review of Politics and Culture in Victorian Britain, p. 145.