Stewart Tiley, Librarian, writes: Emily A. Atkinson sat in a lecture hall 131 years ago assiduously taking notes on mental and moral philosophy. She was one of the first cohort of students to pass through Royal Holloway College, founded three years before, in 1886, for the education of women. The lecturer was John Henry Muirhead, freshly appointed to the post, in an early step in a long teaching career. The notes form a small volume bound in marbled paper, signed by Atkinson inside the front cover. Covering topics such as “Ethics”, “Plato’s Republic” and “Butler’s Sermons on Human Nature” they date from 8 October 1889 until 8 May 1890.
In early 2020 the notebook appeared for sale in the Rare Books Department in Blackwell’s Bookshop in Oxford. With generous support from the Friends of the National Library, Balliol College was able to purchase this item for their collection of papers relating to alumni. Muirhead had attended Balliol in 1875 as a Snell Exhibitioner, a scholarship founded in the 17th century to enable members of the University of Glasgow to attend Balliol, as had Muirhead’s mentor at Glasgow, Edward Caird, who would later become Master of the College. Caird, and subsequently Muirhead, were profoundly influenced by Hegel, and, together with other notable Balliol alumni, R.L. Nettleship and T.H. Green, formed a kernel of the British idealist movement in philosophy. Muirhead himself was more interested in applying that philosophy rather than a theoretical perspective, and was a committed teacher and social reformer. Whilst lecturing at Holloway, he was also working at Bedford College for women and the London Society for the Extension of University Teaching, before setting off to transform Mason College in Birmingham into that city’s university, the first civic university in the country. When the notes were taken he had just begun editing the Library of Philosophy, the first series he was involved in to promote broader interest in philosophy.
The support received in purchasing this item means that this appealing record of engagement with the activities of an important figure amongst Balliol’s alumni, one who exemplified the tenor of its thought in the latter half of the 19th century, is now housed along with papers including those of his mentors and colleagues in the College’s Historic Collections Centre. It will be invaluable for teaching 19th century ideas in Oxford, and demonstrating the networks and exchange of these at the time.
