HARTOG, SIR PHILIP JOSEPH

HARTOG, SIR PHILIP JOSEPH (1864–1947), British educator. His mother was Marion Moss (1821–97), who with her sister Celia had published pioneer sketches of Jewish history in English. Hartog, who was born in London, began his career as lecturer in chemistry at Owens College, Manchester (1891). He served as academic registrar of the University of London from 1904 to 1920. Hartog did extensive chemical research and published the results of his investigations on the thermochemistry of the sulphites, the flame spectrum of nickel compounds, and the latent heat of steam. He was associated with the founding of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He was a member of the Viceroy's Commission on the University of Calcutta, India, in 1917. From 1920 to 1925 Hartog served as the first vice chancellor of the University of Dacca, Bengal. He was instrumental in the creation of the National Foundation for Educational Research, London, to study the nature and purpose of school examinations. He played a leading role in the improvement of school and college examinations. In 1930 Hartog was knighted for distinguished public service. In 1933 he went to Palestine as chairman of the committee of inquiry on the organization of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In the same year he became chairman of the Jewish Professional Committee to assist refugees from Germany. He was chairman of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue and active in the Anglo-Jewish Association and Board of Deputies of British Jews. Hartog's works include: The Writing of English (1907), Blaise Pascal (1927), Joseph Priestley and his Place in the History of Science (1931), Some Aspects of Indian Education, Past and Present (1939), and Words in Action (1947).

Hartog's brother, numa edward (1846–1871), was a mathematician who had attracted attention when in 1869 he had graduated as Senior Wrangler and Smith's Prizeman at Cambridge University but as a Jew had not been admitted to a fellowship. It is generally believed that Hartog's case led to the passage by Parliament of the Test Act, 1871, which removed religious barriers to holding fellowships at Oxford and Cambridge. Numa Hartog died of smallpox at the age of only 25. Their cousin was the philosopher H. *Bergson.

bibliography:

M.H. Hartog. P.J. Hartog: a Memoir by his Wife Mabel Hartog (1949). add. bibliography: odnb online for both; Jolles, Distinguished British Jews, index; I. Finestein, "Religious Disabilities at Oxford and Cambridge and the Movement for Abolition, 1771–1871," in: idem., Anglo-Jewry in Changing Times (1999), 102–39.

[Ernest Schwarcz]