Tales of the Ridings

Frederic Moorman came of a stock which, on both sides, had struck deep roots in the soil of Devon. His father's family, which is believed to have sprung ultimately from "either Cornwall or Scotland"--a sufficiently wide choice, it may be thought--had for many generations been settled in the county.(1) His mother's--her maiden name was Mary Honywill--had for centuries held land at Widdicombe and the neighbourhood, in the heart of Dartmoor. He was born on 8th September 1872, at Ashburton, where his father, the Rev. A. C. Moorman, was Congregational minister; and for the first ten years of his life he was brought up on the skirts of the moor to which his mother's family belonged: drinking in from the very first that love of country sights and sounds which clove to him through life, and laying the foundation of that close knowledge of birds and flowers which was an endless source of delight to him in after years, and which made him so welcome a companion in a country walk with any friend who shared his love of such things but who, ten to one, could make no pretence whatever to his knowledge.

In 1882, his father was appointed to the ministry of the Congregational Church at Stonehouse, in Gloucestershire; and Frederic began his formal schooling at the Wyclif Preparatory School in that place. The country round Stonehouse--a country of barish slopes and richly wooded valleys--is perhaps hardly so beautiful as that which he had left and whose memory he never ceased to cherish. But it has a charm all its own, and the child of Dartmoor had no great reason to lament his removal to the grey uplands and "golden valleys" of the Cotswolds.

His next change must have seemed one greatly for the worse. In 1884 he was sent to the school for the sons of Congregational ministers at Caterham; and the Cotswolds, with their wide outlook over the Severn estuary to May Hill and the wooded heights beyond, were exchanged for the bald sweep and the white chalk-pits of the North Downs. These too have their unique beauty; but I never remember to have heard Moorman say anything which showed that he felt it as those who have known such scenery from boyhood might have expected him to do.

After some five years at Caterham, he began his academical studies at University College, London; but, on the strength of a scholarship, soon removed to University College, Aberystwyth (1890), where the scenery--sea, heron-haunted estuaries, wooded down to the very shore, and hills here and there rising almost into mountains--offered surroundings far more congenial to him than the streets and squares of Bloomsbury.

In these new surroundings, he seems to have been exceptionally happy, throwing himself into all the interests of the place, athletic as well as intellectual, and endearing himself both to his teachers and his fellow-students. His friendship with Professor Herford, then Professor of English at Aberystwyth, was one of the chief pleasures of his student days as well as of his after life. Following his natural bent, he decided to study for Honours in English Language and Literature, and at the end of his course (1893) was placed in the Second Class by the examiners for the University of London, to which the Aberystwyth College was at that time affiliated. Those who believe in the virtue of infant prodigies--and, in the country which invented Triposes and Class Lists, it is hard to fix any limit to their number--will be distressed to learn that, in the opinion of those best qualified to judge of such matters, he was not at that time reckoned to be of "exceptionally scholarly calibre." Perhaps this was an omen all the better for his future prospects as a scholar.

It is a wholesome practice that, when the cares of examinations are once safely behind him, a student should widen his experience by a taste of foreign travel. Accordingly, in September, 1893, Moorman betook himself to Strasbourg, primarily for the sake of continuing his studies under the skilful guidance of Ten Brinck. The latter, however, was almost at once called to Berlin and succeeded by Brandl, now himself of the University of Berlin, who actually presided over Moorman's studies for the next two years, and who thought, and never ceased to think, very highly both of his abilities and his acquirements. It was only natural that Moorman should make a pretty complete surrender to German ideals and German methods of study. It was equally natural that, in the light of subsequent experience, his enthusiasms in that line should suffer a considerable diminution. He was not of the stuff to accept for ever the somewhat bloodless and barren spirit which has commonly dominated the pursuit of literature in German universities.

Into the social life of his new surroundings he threw himself with all the zest that might have been expected from his essentially sociable nature: making many friendships--that of Brandl was the one he most valued--and joining--in some respects, leading--his fellow-students in their sports and other amusements. His first published work, in fact, was a translation of the Rules of Association Football into German; and he may fairly be regarded as the godfather of that game on German soil. Nor was this the end of his activities. During the two years he spent at Strasbourg he acted as Lektor in English to the University, so gaining--and gaining, it is said, with much success--his first experience in what was to be his life's work as a teacher.

On the completion of his course at Strasbourg, where he obtained the degree of Ph.D. in June 1895,(2) he returned to Aberystwyth, now no longer as student but as Lecturer in the English Language and Literature under his friend and former teacher, Professor Herford. There he remained for a little over two years (September, 1895, to January, 1898), gradually increasing his stores of knowledge and strengthening the foundations of the skill which was afterwards to serve him in good stead as a teacher. During that time he also became engaged to the sister of one of his colleagues, Miss Frances Humpidge, whom he had known for some years and whose love was to be the chief joy and support of his after life.

As a matter of prudence, the marriage was postponed until his prospects should be better assured. The opportunity came sooner than could have been expected. In January, 1898, he was appointed to the lectureship in his subject--a subject, such is our respect for literature, then first handed over to an independent department--in the Yorkshire College at Leeds; and in August of the same year he was married. Four children, three of whom survived and the youngest of whom was twelve at the time of his death, were born during the earlier years of the marriage.

The life of a teacher offers little excitement to the onlooker; and all that can be done here is to give a slight sketch of the various directions in which Moorman's energies went out. The first task that lay before him was to organise the new department which had been put into his hands, to make English studies a reality in the college to which he had been called, to give them the place which they deserve to hold in the life of any institution devoted to higher education. Into this task he threw himself with a zeal which can seldom, if ever, have been surpassed. Within six years he had not only put the teaching of his subject to Pass Students upon a satisfactory basis; he had also laid the foundations of an Honours School able to compete on equal terms with those of the other colleges which were federated in the then Victoria University of the north. It was a really surprising feat for so young a man--he was little over twenty-five when appointed--to have accomplished in so short a time; the more so as he was working single-handed: in other words, was doing unaided the work, both literary and linguistic, which in other colleges was commonly distributed between two or three. And I speak with intimate knowledge when I say that the Leeds students who presented themselves for their Honours Degree at the end of that time bore every mark of having been most thoroughly and efficiently prepared.

In 1904, six years after Moorman's appointment to the lectureship, the Yorkshire College was reconstituted as a separate and independent university, the University of Leeds; and in the rearrangement which followed, an older man was invited to come in as official chief of the department for which Moorman had hitherto been solely responsible. This invitation was not accepted until Moorman had generously made it clear that the proposed appointment would not be personally unwelcome to him. Nevertheless, it was clearly an invidious position for the new-comer: and a position which, but for the exceptional generosity and loyalty of the former chief of the department, would manifestly have been untenable. In fact, no proof of Moorman's unselfishness could be more conclusive than that, for the nine years during which the two men worked together, the harmony between them remained unbroken, untroubled by even the most passing cloud. Near the close of this time, in recognition of his distinction as a scholar and of his great services to the University, a separate post, as Professor of the English Language, was created for him.

During the whole of his time at Leeds, his knowledge of his subject, both on its literary and linguistic side, was constantly deepening and his efficiency, as teacher of it, constantly increasing. With so keen a mind as his, this was only to be expected. It was equally natural that, as his knowledge expanded and his advice came to be more and more sought by those engaged in the study of such matters, he should make the results of his researches known to a wider public. After several smaller enterprises of this kind,(3) he broke entirely fresh ground with two books, which at once established his right to be heard in both the fields for which he was professionally responsible: Yorkshire Place Names, published for and by the Thoresby Society in 1911; and a study of the life and poetry of Robert Herrick, two years later. The former, if here and there perhaps not quite rigorous enough in the tests applied to the slippery evidence available, is in all essentials a most solid piece of work: based on a wide and sound knowledge of the linguistic principles which, though often grossly neglected, form the corner-stone, and something more, of all such inquiries; and lit up with a keen eye for the historical issues--issues reaching far back into national origins which, often in the most unexpected places, they may be made to open out. The latter, to which he turned with the more zest because it led him back to the familiar setting of his native county--to its moors and rills and flowers, and the fairy figures that haunted them--is a delightful study of one of the most unique of English poets(4); a study, however, which could only have been written by one who, among many other things, was a thorough-paced scholar. Many qualities--knowledge, scholarship, love of nature, a discerning eye for poetic beauty--go to the making of such a book. Their union in this Study serves to show that, great as was Moorman's authority in the field of language, it was always to literature, above all to poetry, that his heart went naturally out. The closing years of his life were to set this beyond doubt.