Arthur Hallam

Arthur Henry Hallam (1 February 1811 – 15 September 1833) was an English poet, best known as the subject of a major work, In Memoriam A.H.H., by his close friend and fellow poet, Alfred Tennyson. Hallam has been described as the jeune homme fatal (French for "fatal young man") of his generation.

Hallam was born in London, son of the historian Henry Hallam. He attended school at Eton, where he met future Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone. Hallam was an important influence on Gladstone, introducing him to Whiggish ideas and people. After leaving Eton in 1827 Hallam travelled on the continent with his family, and in Italy he became inspired by its culture and fell in love with an English beauty, Anna Mildred Wintour, who inspired eleven of his poems.

In October 1828, Hallam went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he met and befriended Tennyson. As Christopher Ricks observes, 'The friendship of Hallam and Tennyson was swift and deep.'

Hallam and Tennyson became friends in April 1829. They both entered the Chancellor's Prize Poem Competition (which Tennyson won). Both joined the Cambridge Apostles (a private debating society), which met every Saturday night during term to discuss, over coffee and anchovy sandwiches, serious questions of religion, literature and society. (Hallam read a paper on 'whether the poems of Shelley have an immoral tendency'; Tennyson was to speak on 'Ghosts', but was, according to his son's Memoir, 'too shy to deliver it' - only the Preface to the essay survives). Meetings of the Apostles were not always so intimidating: Desmond MacCarthy gave an account of Hallam and Tennyson at one meeting lying on the ground in order to laugh less painfully, when James Spedding imitated the sun going behind a cloud and coming out again.

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