In 1883 Lord Lorne returned to England, contested Hampstead unsuccessfully at the next general election, and followed his father out of the liberal party on the question of Home Rule. His intimacy with the court and his friendship with Macdonald in Canada had prepared the way for such a change. In 1892 he contested an election at Bradford; in 1895 he became unionist member for South Manchester. He succeeded to the dukedom of Argyll in April 1900. In April 1914 he developed double pneumonia while in the Isle of Wight, and died on 2 May, leaving no issue. He was succeeded in the title by his nephew, Niall Diarmid Campbell, grandson of the eighth Duke.
The Duke of Argyll’s interests were less of a political than of a dilettante literary character. He seldom spoke in parliament, and never held ministerial office. Possibly his relation with the Crown made a party career difficult. After 1883 he continued to take an interest in Canadian affairs, especially in immigration, and wrote several books about Canada and a pamphlet advocating imperial federation. He also published fiction, volumes of verse, a life of Palmerston, and two volumes of reminiscences.
[Writings, especially Passages from the Past, 1907; S. Lee, Queen Victoria, 1902; J. S. Willison, Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the Liberal Party, 1908; O. D. Skelton, Life and Times of Sir A. T. Galt, 1920; J. Pope, Memoirs of Sir John Macdonald, 1894, and Correspondence of Sir John Macdonald, 1921. Portrait, Royal Academy Pictures, 1906.]
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
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