Henry Francis Pelham

Next year he won an open classical scholarship at Trinity College, Oxford, matriculating on 22 April 1865; he came into residence in October.

At Oxford he took 'first classes' in honour classical moderations and in literæ humaniores, was elected a fellow of Exeter College in 1869, and graduated B.A.

He soon began to publish articles on this theme (first in Journal of Philology, 1876), while his lectures, which (under the system then growing up) were open to members of other colleges besides Exeter, attracted increasingly large audiences; he also planned, with the Clarendon Press, a detailed History of the Roman Empire, which he was not destined to carry out.

[1] But his research work was stopped by an attack of cataract in both eyes (1890), and though a few specimen paragraphs of his projected History were set up in type in 1888, he completed in manuscript only three and a half chapters, covering the years B.C.

On the other hand, he joined actively in administrative work, for which his strong personality and his clear sense fitted him at least as well as for research; he served on many Oxford boards, was a member of the Hebdomadal Council from 1879 to 1905, aided semi-academic educational movements (he was a founder of the women's college Somerville Hall), and in 1897 accepted the presidency of his old college.