Charles Alan Fyffe

Charles Alan Fyffe (3 December 1845 – 19 February 1892) was an English historian, who was also well known as a journalist and a political candidate.

Life

He was the son of Lawrence Hay Fyffe, M.D. of Blackheath, by Mary Prudence, daughter of John Ord, born at Lee Park, Blackheath, on 3 December 1845. He was educated at Christ's Hospital, and obtained an open exhibition at Balliol College, Oxford, 1864. He graduated B.A. in 1868 and M.A. in 1870.{{cite DNB|wstitle= Fyffe, Charles Alan|supplement=1|volume=2}}

In 1871, Fyffe was elected a fellow of University College, and for many years acted as the bursar. He acted as correspondent to the Daily News during the first part of the Franco-Prussian War, and was in Paris during the commune, where he was taken for a spy.

Fyffe entered Lincoln's Inn on 10 June 1873. He later transferred to the Inner Temple (26 May 1876), where he was called to the bar on 10 May 1877. He joined the south-west circuit, but never practiced.

Politics

Fyffe had strong Liberal views, and was president of the Oxford Union in 1867. In 1870, in Macmillan's Magazine, he wrote that "Liberalism has become co-extensive with intelligence".{{cite book|author=William Whyte|title=Oxford Jackson: Architecture, Education, Status, and Style 1835-1924: Architecture, Education, Status, and Style 1835-1924|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WaILJIABouUC&pg=PA91|date=31 August 2006|publisher=Clarendon Press|isbn=978-0-19-151633-7|page=91 and note 29}} His activism was influenced by T. H. Green.{{cite book|author=R. C. Whiting|title=Oxford: Studies in the History of a University Town Since 1800|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wBYNAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA28|date=1 January 1993|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-0-7190-3057-4|page=28}}

Fyffe held views as a land law reformer and was one of the founders of the free land league. His views on land reform were broadly supported by Sir Charles Dilke;[http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/24th-january-1885/5/mr-fyffes-pamphlet-on-the-land-mr-fyffes-pamphlet- The Spectator, 24 January 1885, Mr Fyffe's Pamphlet on the Land.] they were more in line with the ideas of Henry George than those of Henry Hyndman, or the land nationalisation of Alfred Russel Wallace.{{Cite journal |last=Lawrence |first=Elwood P. |date=1954 |title=George, Chamberlain and the Land Tax, II: A Chapter in British Party Politics |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3484639 |journal=The American Journal of Economics and Sociology |volume=13 |issue=4 |pages=401–413 |issn=0002-9246}} His evidence for the Report on Small Holdings of 1888–90 was that demand for smallholdings could be very high.J. Ellis Barker, Great and Greater Britain: the problems of motherland and empire, political, naval, military, industrial, financial, social (1910), pp. 402–3; [https://archive.org/stream/cu31924032473435#page/n419/mode/2up archive.org.] He was an unsuccessful candidate for the city of Oxford in the Radical interest at the general election of 1885.

Court case and death

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In 1891, Fyffe was a prospective parliamentary candidate at Devizes.{{cite ODNB|id=10259|title=Fyffe, Charles Alan|first=Myfanwy|last=Lloyd}} A charge was brought to court against him at Wiltshire Assizes. It was thrown out, but Fyffe attempted suicide. Early biographies were reticent about the details. Newspaper reports from overseas were that the charge was of improper assault; John Richard Robinson appeared as a witness for Fyffe. The charge was brought by a young fellow-passenger on the Brighton Railway.[http://fultonhistory.com/Newspapers%207/Brooklyn%20NY%20Daily%20Eagle/Brooklyn%20NY%20Daily%20Eagle%201891%20Grayscale/Brooklyn%20NY%20Daily%20Eagle%201891%20Grayscale%20-%201417.pdf From Brooklyn Daily Eagle, under "By Cable from Europe" (PDF)][http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4060082 South Australian Register 18 July 1891 under "Another Scandal: The Charge Against a University Fellow".]

Fyffe did not recover from his suicide attempt, and died on 19 February 1892 at Laughton Hall, Edinburgh. He was buried at Buncton in Sussex.

Works

In 1875, Fyffe published a small school history of Greece, which sold well. His History of Modern Europe was in three volumes (1880, 1886, 1890){{cite book|author=Fyffe, C. A.|title=History of Modern Europe|volume=3 vols.|publisher=Henry Holt & Company|location=New York|url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005858947}}{{cite journal|title=Review of A History of Modern Europe, Vol. III, by C. A. Fyffe|journal=The Athenæum|issue= 3248|pages=112–113|date=January 25, 1890|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B21GAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA112}} and passed through subsequent editions.

Family

Fyffe married, on 7 June 1883, Henrietta Frances Arnaud, the only child of Waynflete Arnaud Blagden of Holmbush Ashington, Sussex, by whom he left three children.

Children of Charles Alan Fyffe & Henrietta Frances Arnaud Blagden