Arthur Bryant
| Sir Arthur Bryant | |
|---|---|
| Born |
18 February 1899 Dersingham, England |
| Died | 22 January 1985 (aged 85) Wiltshire, England |
| Occupation | Historian, columnist |
Sir Arthur Wynne Morgan Bryant CH CBE (18 February 1899 – 22 January 1985), was an English historian, columnist for The Illustrated London News and man of affairs. His books included studies of Samuel Pepys, accounts of English eighteenth- and nineteenth-century history, and a life of George V. Whilst his scholarly reputation has declined somewhat since his death, he continues to be read and to be the subject of detailed historical studies. He moved in high government circles and his books were devoured by the ruling elite; he was the favourite historian of at least three prime ministers: Churchill, Attlee, and Wilson.
Bryant's historiography was often based on an English romantic exceptionalism drawn from his nostalgia for an idealised agrarian past. He hated modern commercial and financial capitalism, he emphasised duty over rights, and he equated democracy with the consent of "fools" and "knaves".
Arthur Bryant was the son of Sir Francis Morgan Bryant, who was the chief clerk to the Prince of Wales, and wife Margaret (May) née Edmunds. His father would later hold a number of offices in the royal secretariat, eventually becoming registrar of the Royal Victorian Order. Arthur grew up in a house bordering the Buckingham Palace gardens near the Royal Mews. There he developed a feel for the trappings of traditional British protocol and a strong attachment to the history of England.
He attended school at Pelham House, Sandgate, and Harrow School where his younger brother the Rev Philip Henry Bryant later became an assistant Master. Though he expected to join the British Army, he won in 1916 a scholarship to Pembroke College, Cambridge. Despite that, he joined the Royal Flying Corps the following year, as a pilot officer. While there, he served in the first squadron to bomb the cities of the Rhineland in World War I. He was also for a time the only British subject formally attached to an American pilot unit, a unit which had been sent overseas for training.
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