Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse, 2nd Baronet (1873-1944) – who insisted his surname was pronounced ‘Bacchus’ – was at Win:Coll: from 1885 to 1890, before going up to Merton College, Oxford. He never completed his degree, however, having accumulated massive debts and suffered a breakdown, and fled the country, arriving in Peking in 1899. An extraordinary linguist, he worked for the Times correspondent as a translator, and established his own reputation as a serious Sinologist. Continue reading “Which Cornflowers alumnus was a spy for the British in WWI, sympathiser for the fascist axis in WWII, fluent in Chinese, Japanese, Manchu, Mongolian and a number of European languages, and claimed to have slept with Paul Verlaine, an Ottoman princess, Oscar Wilde, and the Empress Dowager Cixi of China?”
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Which Cornflowers alumnus – a renowned and serious writer and translator, as well as soldier and spy – also penned filthy doggerel?
Coll: 1903-08
Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff (1889-1930) was a Scottish writer most famous for his translation of Marcel Proust’s À La Recherche du Temps Perdu (don’t even pretend you’ve read it all) – which he cast as Remembrance of Things Past. Although Proust didn’t care much for the translations himself, they are still regarded as amongst the finest. In his short life, his friendship circle included G.K. Chesterton, Robert Graves and Wilfred Owen; his circle of enemies included Siegfried Sassoon and Edith Sitwell. Continue reading “Which Cornflowers alumnus – a renowned and serious writer and translator, as well as soldier and spy – also penned filthy doggerel?”
Which Cornflowers alumnus grew up in Downing Street and later became a renowned film director?
Anthony Asquith (1902-1968) was the son of Herbert Asquith, who became Prime Minister in 1908, and his wife Margot, a celebrated society figure. Aged six, he moved to his new family home in 10 Downing Street. Family friend, the actor Jonathan Cecil describes this upbringing: “He grew up in this ultra-sophisticated world where everyone was worldly and rich”. Continue reading “Which Cornflowers alumnus grew up in Downing Street and later became a renowned film director?”
Which Cornflowers alumnus was involved in the legislation that marked “the start of a long campaign to secure legal equality for homosexuals”?
Coll: 1920-1925
“Even if I become Prime Minister, I’ll never be as great as I was at Winchester”
Richard Crossman (1907-1974) was a Member of Parliament, intellectual force within the Labour party, Minister, and famed diarist.
Which Cornflowers alumnus will be portrayed in a British film written and directed by Rupert Everett?
(H, 1884-1888)
“If I had escaped untarnished from Winchester and Oxford it would have been a miracle, and I would have been a saint.”
Lord Alfred Douglas, known as Bosie, is best-known for having been the lover of Oscar Wilde, an affair which started in 1891 and led to Wilde’s incarceration in 1895. A writer, critic and translator in his own right, he published many collections of his own poetry, as well as a number of works explaining his relationship with Wilde.