Sir John Plumb : The Hidden Life of a Great Historian

This new memoir depicts a startlingly revelatory portrait of a complex and controversial man who moved from poverty to great affluence; from beginning his life in a two-up two-down terrace house in Leicester to end it in what was called "Jack''s Palace" surrounded by a world-class collection of Vincennes and Sèvres.

Sir John (Jack) Harold Plumb (1911 - 2001) was a great British historian. He led an extraordinary life of startling contrasts, much of it cloaked in secrecy. This memoir attempts to lift that cloak. / This is a very personal account written by Neil McKendrick, a fellow historian, a fellow Master of a Cambridge college and one his oldest and closest friends, who knew Plumb from his early days to his dying hours some fifty years after they first met. / This new memoir depicts a startlingly revelatory portrait of a complex and controversial man who moved from poverty to great affluence; from beginning his life in a two-up two-down terrace house in Leicester to end it in what was called "Jack''s Palace" surrounded by a world-class collection of Vincennes and S�vres. / Plumb''s personality was sufficiently beguiling to attract the attention of four significant novelists who left six vivid if unflattering fictional versions of him - depicting him as a ruthless charmer, a serial bisexual philanderer and, most bizarrely of all, as a murderer planning a further murder. In truth the real man needed no fictional elaboration to make him unusually interesting. In fact his life is often astonishing. The historian, who achieved such international eminence that, on the direct order of the US President and after a unanimous vote in Congress, the Union flag was flown over the American Congress on his 80th birthday to do honour to the historian who had taught the American people so much, was no run of the mill academic. / Contents: Introduction. Biography. Preface. Sir John Plumb. Family upbringing and schooling: Leicester and Alderman Newton''s. Plumb at Cambridge. Plumb''s Early Research. Plumb''s publications. Plumb, Elton and Chadwick and The Regius Chair. Plumb and his adopted family. Plumb''s Reputation as a Patron, a Promoter and a Fixer. Fictional Portraits of Plumb. Painted Portraits of Plumb. Plumb at Bletchley. Influences on Plumb. The Sources of Plumb''s wealth. Plumb as Editor. Plumb''s Apolarist Life style. Expensive cars and Their Destruction. Plumb the Big Spender: Houses, Holidays and Other Indulgences. Plumb and His New friends: A Case of Social Nobility. Plumb''s reputation as a Scholar. Plumbs'' Health and His Declining Productivity. Plumb''s Professional Reputation. Plumbs'' Dedications. Plumbs'' Other Writing. Plumb''s Pupils. Plumb''s Changing Political Beliefs. Plumb''s Generosity: to his Staff and His Friends and Himself. Plumb''s Wine. Plumb''s Donations. Plumb''s Private Life. Plumb and Friendship. The Posthumous Sale of 2002. Plumb''s Adopted Family. A Postscript on the Black Years. The Plumb Master ship in Context. Other Public Recognition. Desert Island Discs. Plumb''s Changing Attitudes'' to His Pupils. The End of Life, Death and a Memorial Dinner: Memories and Legacy and Final Judgements. Postscript: Sir J.H.Plumb Historian and Teacher of Historians. Acknowledgements. Select Bibliography.