Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Cannan, Charles
CANNAN, CHARLES (1838-1919), scholar and university publisher, was born 2 August 1858, the elder son of David Alexander Cannan, a native of Kirkcudbrightshire, by his wife, Jane Dorothea Claude, of Huguenot descent. He was educated at Clifton College, while John Percival [q.v.] was head master, and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, of which he was a scholar. In 1884 he was elected fellow of Trinity College, where Percival had become president in 1878. Cannan became classical tutor and dean in 1884, and junior bursar in 1887. At Trinity he quickly made his mark as an original and unconventional tutor and lecturer—his lectures on ‘Mods.’ logic were especially remembered—and his influence was felt in the social and athletic no less than in the intellectual life of the college. He was an unusual dean. His doctrine was that discipline should be enforced without the imposition of penalties; and once, when driven to ‘gate’ an undergraduate, he declared that this was failure, and that he ought to resign. To not a few of his pupils Cannan communicated something of his interest in the Aristotelian writings, the study of which remained for some forty years the chief occupation of his leisure, In his youth he read a good deal in poetry and polite literature; his share in the Oxford Book of English Verse has been recorded by its compiler. But later his reading, when dictated by choice, was commonly either a newspaper or Aristotle. He read the Philosopher not at a table with notebooks and commentaries, but in an arm-chair. It was usually the Metaphysics or the Logic, which he explored in the historical spirit, seeking to trace the development of doctrine. This was to have been the subject of the doubtless remarkable book which he intended, but did not live, to write. His talent for writing, as for organization, first showed itself in journalism.
In 1895 Cannan was elected a delegate of the University Press; and the direction of his career was determined when in 1898 the delegates appointed him their secretary in succession to Philip Lyttelton Gell. He held the office for over twenty years, and died in harness. He devoted to the Press, or to objects connected with it, almost the whole of his energies; and he will be remembered as an outstanding figure in the long history of that institution. During his secretaryship Cannan promoted the great growth in the volume of the Press’s business, in the variety of its publications, and in the number of its branches overseas. By nature conservative and cautious, he seldom seemed to initiate far-reaching changes of policy. He conceived of the Press as an institution possessing inherited characters and a natural growth; and of himself as fostering its growth rather than as giving it new directions. In effect, however, his dominant personality exercised a profound influence, both directly and through the subordinates whom he chose and trained. His method of instruction may be illustrated from the recollections of one of his assistants. This very young man paid his first visit to the Press, to be looked at; and found the secretary in conversation with a gentleman who—as appeared—had undertaken something which he had failed to perform. When he had escaped, Cannan turned to his second visitor, and regarded him, without speech. The young man presently made bold to inquire what kind of work, in the event of appointment, he should be expected to do. ‘Oh, can’t you see? You heard me talking to that fellow.’
Cannan’s greatest reform was in the London office of the Press, where the distribution of Oxford books, and in particular the management of the business in bibles and prayer books, had been conducted with great skill by Mr. Henry Frowde. Cannan saw that the time had come for this side of the business to be directed by Oxford men. The changes which he was able to effect, and especially the appointment in 1913 of Mr. Humphrey Milford as publisher to the university (Mr. Frowde having retired at an advanced age), made the London office what it had never been, a real department of the university. He did much also to broaden the activities of the Press in the production of books, notably in the fields of modern politics and imperial history. He was not a believer in the promotion of research by endowment; but he spared no pains to help and encourage researchers of proved competence and to facilitate the publication of their work.
In politics Cannan was a conservative and a strong imperialist; but he was not a party man. He was interested in local affairs, and was for a time a member of the Oxford city council. He served on a number of university boards, where his opinion was valued on financial questions. He made few public appearances, and seldom left Oxford except to visit Switzerland or other mountainous districts; he was an ardent climber.
Cannan had a passion for anonymity. His one book—Selecta ex Organo Aristotelio Capitula (1897)—-was anonymous. He contrived to conceal his share, which was great, in making university appointments. He would not allow his name to appear in the prefaces of books in which he had a hand, and in which his characteristic style, smooth yet incisive, may sometimes be detected. His manner was formidable; his tone was dry, and even cynical; his last weapon, which he used ruthlessly, was silence; his enthusiasms were unspoken; he had a mean opinion of human intelligence in general, and not a very high one of human probity. This is, perhaps, not the description of a great man, or of a lovable one; yet Cannan was both. Those who knew him well became aware that they had to do with a man of great intellectual power and subtlety; of rare force of will; of unselfish devotion to the things he loved; and of a singularly tender heart.
Cannan married in 1891 Mary Wedderburn, daughter of A. Wedderburn Maxwell, of Glenlair, Kircudbrightshire, by whom he had three daughters. He died at Oxford 15 December 1919. His portrait was never painted; but photographs give a good impression of his piercing glance and of his salient feature, the beautifully modelled nose.
[The Times, 16 December 1919; articles in the Oxford Magazine by A. Quiller Couch and W. A. R[aleigh], January and March, 1920; Oxford and the War (by G. S. Gordon) in The Times Literary Supplement, 24 February 1921; personal knowledge.]