Herbert Blakiston was born in Hastings the son of artist Douglas Yeoman Blakiston and Sophia Matilda Dent. His father subsequently became a clergyman and the family moved to the vicarage of St Swithun's Church, East Grinstead.^[1][3] Blakistone was a descendant of Sir Matthew Blakiston, the Lord Mayor of London from 1760 to 1761;^[4] he was the great-grandson of Sir Matthew Blakiston, 2nd Baronet Blakiston.

Herbert Blakiston was the eldest of six children, he had two sisters and three brothers. All four brothers attended Tonbridge School, with Herbert being there from 1876 to 1881. ^[5][6][7] As he wore glasses, he acquired the nickname "Blinks" in school, which followed him for the remainder of his life.^[8]

One of the brothers, Charles, was killed in a firearm accident at the age of 24 in October 1887. A house surgeon at the Salop Infirmary, Shrewsbury, Charles was accidentally shot in the back while hunting rabbits with a colleague.^[9][3] The youngest brother, William, was 19 when he accidentally fell under a train at Charing Cross Station on the night of 1 October 1889, and died in hospital some days later.^[10][3] The third brother, John, was a telegraph clerk. He was one of seven killed while defending Mazowe, Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) on 18 June 1896 at the start of the Second Matabele War.^[11][1][3]

In 1908 the vicarage at East Grinsted was destroyed in a fire, leaving Douglas Blakiston liable for £1000 as the building was under-insured.^[3] Herbert Blakiston's sisters, Mabel and Emily, died in 1910 and 1912. His mother also died in 1912, and his father died in 1914.^[3]

Blakiston matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford, in October 1881. He gained a first class degree in Literae Humaniores in 1885. He was ordained and became Fellow, Chaplain, and Lecturer at Trinity College in 1887. He then became Tutor in 1892, Senior Tutor and Junior Bursar in 1898, before being elected President of the College in March 1907. He also served simultaneously as Estates Bursar (1915–1938). Blakiston was not the college fellows' first choice for the presidency. Robert Rapier was the preferred candidate but he turned the position down, citing his advancing age as an obstacle.^[12] During his presidency, Blakiston continued in the role of chaplain and sometimes conducted services in the Trinity College chapel.^[13]

Outside of Trinity College, Blakiston had also been appointed University Proctor in 1899. He was the university auditor from 1903 to 1917 and became a member of the Hebdomadal Council in 1915.^[1]

During the First World War, many Trinity staff and students left to join the armed forces. By 1918, there were just nine undergraduates in residence. Blakiston became the university's Vice-Chancellor in 1917 and did much to improve its finances, which had been placed under strain by the war as the university, in his words, was "almost empty". He was effective in this role although his health was affected by the strain of the additional responsibilities.^[14]

Blakiston was devoted to his college and its students. He had the lifelong habit of keeping clippings from The Times that mentioned any former student.^[15] He was badly affected by the deaths of 155 Trinity men during the First World War, many known to him personally. In many cases, he personally visited the families of former-students who had been killed to offer condolences.^[16] After the War, he devoted much effort to a new library that was to be their memorial.^[17] He wrote 1200 letters asking for donations,^[18] partially designed the building himself and paid five percent of its cost from his own pocket.^[1] The building was eventually completed in 1928.

Blakiston was later described as unsociable, snobbish, parsimonious and obsessed with finance. He had few close friends and made enemies easily. His racism was notable even by the standards of the time and he became notorious for it.^[1][8] He was strongly against Oxford degrees being awarded to women,^[1] which began while he served as university Vice-Chancellor and in spite of all he could to do oppose it.^[4] The central character in Joanna Cannan's 1931 satirical novel High Table, Theodore Fletcher, is a thinly-disguised, cruel caricature of him.^[8]

During his presidency, Blakiston was largely responsible for college admissions and developed a particular notoriety for refusing applications to Trinity from non-white candidates. Notably, he stubbornly resisted pressure from the India Office to admit undergraduates from British India, something that government department was attempting to promote.^[19] During this time, the traditional rivalry between Trinity and Balliol College took on a racial tone as Balliol admitted a number of Asian students.^[20]

Although he was under no compulsion to retire from the College Presidency, he did so on 1 September 1938, having held the post for 31 years.^[4] He was succeeded by John Weaver.

After living at Trinity College for 57 years,^[4] Blakiston moved to Boars Hill, near Oxford.^[21] On 28 July 1942, he was struck by a motorist while walking in Boars Hill; he died the next day in the Radcliffe Infirmary without regaining consciousness.^[22] His funeral took place in the Trinity College chapel and his ashes were interred in the antechapel.^[23] He left £100,055 in his will. His bequests were to Oxford University and Trinity College for the purchase of works of art.^[1]

Trinity College owns two portraits of him. One painted in 1932 by the chemist Cyril Norman Hinshelwood^[24] and one painted from a photograph in 1943 by Allan Gwynne-Jones.^[1][25]

Blakiston wrote articles for the Dictionary of National Biography, including the entry for the explorer Thomas Blakiston.^[26] In 1894, he wrote an English translation of several of Cicero's works, including the Catiline Orations and Pro Milone.^[27] He wrote a brief work on Durham College, Oxford^[28] and a meticulously-researched history of Trinity College that was published in 1898.^[29][15] A small print–run of his history of the Blakiston family was published in 1928.^[30] He also wrote a collection of ghost stories in Latin.^[4]

• History of Trinity College, Oxford
• Noel Agazarian

Citations

Bibliography

• Higham, T. F. (1967). Dr. Blakiston recalled: memories of an Oxford 'character, ' the Rev. Herbert Edward Blakiston, D.D., President of Trinity College, 1907-1938. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-10990-0. OCLC 459955.
• Hopkins, Claire (2005). Trinity: 450 years of an Oxford college community. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-951896-3.
• Hughes, Walter Oldham, ed. (1886). The register of Tonbridge School, from 1820 to 1886. I.I. Beecroft, Printer. p. 178. OCLC 671510121.

• Portrait of Herbert Blakiston at the National Portrait Gallery (London).
• The speeches of M. Tullius Cicero against Catiline and Antony and for Murena and Milo (1894), translated by Herbert ED Blakiston MA, at the Internet Archive
• Trinity college (1898), by Herbert ED Blakiston MA, at the Internet Archive