G. E. Manwaring & Bonamy Dobrée

Bonamy Dobrée

Bonamy Dobrée (1891-1974), a British academic, was Professor of English Literature at the University of Leeds from 1936 to 1955. He declared himself a Channel Islander, and was rather proud that both his Bonamy and Dobrée ancestors, bankers, had been mentioned by Thackeray.

After Haileybury and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, Dobrée was commissioned in the Royal Field Artillery in 1910 but resigned in 1913. He rejoined in 1914, serving in France and the Middle East during World War I. In 1920 he took advantage of a tuition discount offered to veterans, taking his BA from Cambridge in 1921 and his MA in 1924. In 1925 he was appointed lecturer in London, and in 1926 Professor of English at the Egyptian University, Cairo, where he remained until 1929. In 1936 he was appointed Professor of English Literature at the University of Leeds, where he remained until his retirement.

During World War II Dobrée served as a lieutenant-colonel in the Army Bureau of Current Affairs. He delivered the Clark Lectures at Cambridge in 1953, and was an Honorary Doctor of the University of Dijon. After retiring from Leeds he edited the Writers and their Work series of pamphlets for the British Council and the National Book League, and lectured as Professor of Literature at Gresham College. He was the Lord Northcliffe Memorial Lecturer in 1963. He died in his Blackheath home.

G. E. Manwaring

George Ernest Manwaring FRHisTS (1882-1939) served on the Council of the Society for Nautical Research and during 1922-5 was assistant editor of The Mariner’s Mirror, under W. G. Perrin. For a long period, and at the time of his death, he also served on the Council of the Navy Records Society.

Coming from a naval background and having worked at the London Library he naturally developed into one of the country’s better known maritime historians and was the author of numerous books