The Horace Club
Michael and Isobel Haslett
The Horace Club was founded on 15 March 1898 and met for the first time on 11 May. The founder was Arnold Ward of Balliol College. This statement will surprise readers of Buchan's biographies, with Janet Adam Smith attributing its foundation to Buchan and three friends Raymond Asquith, Cuthbert Medd and Harold Baker (Adam Smith 1985, 31), and Andrew Lownie giving the honour to Buchan alone (Lownie 1995, 48). There is an explanation. After the club had ceased to exist in 1901 and 'The Book of the Horace Club' had been published by Basil Henry Blackwell, the 'Keeper of the Records' of the club, the records disappeared into the archives of Blackwell's, the booksellers. They briefly surfaced in 1983 when Sir Arthur Norrington published his 'Blackwell's 1879-1979: 'The History of a Family Firm' to celebrate its centenary. This book was written in a great hurry. Sir Basil Blackwell, the son of Basil Henry Blackwell, had intended to write it himself but found he was too old. He, therefore, commissioned Sir Arthur Norrington who did little more than note the existence of the club and the high quality of its members and their poetry.
In 2002 Rita Ricketts published 'Adventurers All', a much more detailed account of Blackwell's based on a much wider range of Sir Basil Blackwell's papers collected together after his death. She was the first to name Arnold Ward as founder, basing her account on the original records of the Horace Club (Ricketts 2002, 90). These consist of two white-volume Kelmscott folios in which have been pasted ninety-five poems by members of the Club. Each poem is handwritten, dated and signed by the author. In addition there is a memorandum by Dorothy M Ward, surviving sister of Arnold Ward, in which are details of the Horace Club's foundation, history, organisation, rules and membership. This is accompanied by an explanatory letter to Sir Basil Blackwell dated 17 June 1952. Finally there is an attendance record of the first six meetings, a list of reviews of 'The Books of the Horace Club' and a number of invitation cards to its meetings.
originally published in JBJ30 (Spring 2004)
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