Early life and education (1818–1842) He was the son of
Robert Hurrell Froude, archdeacon of
Totnes, and his wife Margaret Spedding (died 1821). James Anthony was born at
Dartington,
Devon, on 23 April 1818. He was the youngest of eight children, including engineer and naval architect
William Froude and Anglo-Catholic polemicist
Richard Hurrell Froude, who was fifteen years his elder. By James's third year his mother and five of his siblings had died of
consumption, leaving James to what biographer
Herbert Paul describes as a "loveless, cheerless boyhood" with his cold, disciplinarian father and brother Richard. He studied at
Westminster School from the age of 11 until he was 15; there he was "persistently bullied and tormented". Despite his unhappiness and his failure in formal education, Froude cherished the classics and read widely in history and theology. Beginning in 1836, he was educated at
Oriel College, Oxford, then the centre of the ecclesiastical revival now called the
Oxford Movement. Here Froude began to improve personally and intellectually, motivated to succeed by a brief engagement in 1839 (although this was broken off by the woman's father). He obtained a second-class degree in 1840 and travelled to
Delgany,
Ireland, as a private tutor. He returned to Oxford in 1842, won the Chancellor's English
essay prize for an essay on
political economy, and was elected a fellow of
Exeter College.
Religious development and apostasy (1842–1849) Froude's brother
Richard Hurrell had been one of the leaders of the
Oxford Movement, a group which advocated a
Catholic rather than a
Protestant interpretation of the
Anglican Church. Froude grew up hearing the conversation and ideas of his brother with friends
John Henry Newman and
John Keble, although his own reading provided him with some critical distance from the movement. During his time at Oxford and in Ireland, Froude became increasingly dissatisfied with the Movement. Froude's experience living with an
Evangelical clergyman in Ireland conflicted with the Movement's characterisation of Protestantism, and his observations of Catholic poverty repulsed him. He increasingly turned to the unorthodox religious views of writers such as
Spinoza,
David Friedrich Strauss,
Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Goethe, and especially
Thomas Carlyle. Froude retained a favourable impression of Newman, however, defending him in the controversy over
Tract 90 and later in his essay "The Oxford Counter-Reformation" (1881). Froude agreed to contribute to Newman's
Lives of the English Saints, choosing
Saint Neot as his subject. However, he found himself unable to credit the accounts of Neot or any other saint, ultimately considering them mythical rather than historical, a discovery which further shook his religious faith. Nevertheless, Froude was ordained
deacon in 1845, initially intending to help reform the church from within. However, he soon found his situation untenable; although he never lost his faith in God or Christianity, he could no longer submit to the doctrines of the Church. He began publicly airing his religious doubts through his semi-autobiographical works
Shadows of the Clouds, published in 1847 under the
pseudonym "Zeta", and
The Nemesis of Faith, published under his own name in 1849.
The Nemesis of Faith in particular raised a storm of controversy, being publicly burned in Oxford, at Exeter College, by
William Sewell, and deemed "a manual of infidelity" by the
Morning Herald. Froude was forced to resign his fellowship, and officials at
University College London withdrew the offer of a mastership at
Hobart Town,
Australia, where Froude had hoped to work while reconsidering his situation. Froude took refuge from the popular outcry by residing with his friend
Charles Kingsley at
Ilfracombe. His plight won him the sympathy of kindred spirits, such as
George Eliot,
Elizabeth Gaskell, and later
Mrs Humphry Ward. Ward's popular 1888 novel
Robert Elsmere was largely inspired by this era of Froude's life.
History of England (1850–1870) At Ilfracombe, Froude met and soon married Charlotte Grenfell, Kingsley's sister-in-law, the daughter of
Pascoe Grenfell. The couple moved first to
Manchester and then to
North Wales in 1850, where Froude lived happily, supported by his friends
Arthur Hugh Clough and
Matthew Arnold. Prevented from pursuing a political career because of legal restrictions on deacons (a position which was at the time legally indelible), he decided to pursue a literary career. He began by writing reviews and historical essays, with only sporadic publications on religious topics, for ''
Fraser's Magazine and the Westminster Review. Froude soon returned to England, living at London and Devonshire, in order to research his History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada'', on which he worked for the next twenty years. He worked extensively with original manuscript authorities at the
Record Office,
Hatfield House, and the village of
Simancas,
Spain. Froude's historical writing was characterised by its dramatic rather than scientific treatment of history, an approach Froude shared with Carlyle, and also by Froude's intention to defend the
English Reformation (which he asserted was "the hinge on which all modern history turned"; quotes in and the "salvation of England") against the interpretations of Catholic historians. Froude focused on figures such as
Henry VIII and
Elizabeth I, although he became increasingly unfavourable to Elizabeth over the course of his research. Furthermore, he directly expressed both his antipathy towards Rome and his belief that the Church should be subordinated to the state. As a result, when the first volumes of Froude's history were published in 1856 they drew the ire of liberals (who felt that Froude's depiction of Henry VIII celebrated
despotism) and Oxford
High Churchmen (who opposed his position on the Church); this hostility was expressed in reviews from the
Christian Remembrancer and the
Edinburgh Review. The work was a popular success, however, and along with Froude's 1858 repudiation of his early novels helped him regain much of the esteem he had lost in 1849. Following the death of
Thomas Macaulay in 1859, Froude became the most famous living historian in England. In 1862, he was elected as a member to the
American Philosophical Society. Beginning in 1864,
Edward Augustus Freeman, a High Churchman, launched a critical campaign against Froude in the
Saturday Review and later in the
Contemporary Review, somewhat damaging Froude's scholarly reputation. In 1879, Freeman's review in the
Contemporary Review of Froude's
Short Study of Thomas Becket incited Froude to respond with a refutation in
The Nineteenth Century which largely discredited Freeman's attacks and reaffirmed the value of Froude's manuscript research. In 1860, Froude's wife Charlotte died; in 1861, he married her close friend Henrietta Warre, daughter of
John Warre,
MP for
Taunton. Also in 1861, Froude became editor of ''
Fraser's Magazine'' following the death of former editor
John Parker, who was also Froude's publisher. Froude retained this editorship for fourteen years, resigning it in 1874 at the request of
Thomas Carlyle, with whom he was working. In 1869 Froude was elected Lord Rector of
St. Andrews, defeating
Benjamin Disraeli by a majority of fourteen. In 1870, following the passage of the Clerical Disabilities Act (c. 91, Vict. XXXIII & XXXIV; "Bouverie's Act"), which permitted priests and deacons to resign from Holy Orders, Froude was finally able to officially rejoin the
laity. In a prize-winning work published in 1981, the historian
J. W. Burrow remarked of Froude that he was a leading promoter of the imperialist excitement of the closing years of the century, but that in the mass of his work even empire took second place to religion.
Looking abroad (1870–1880) published in
Vanity Fair in 1872 Soon after the completion of the
History of England in 1870, Froude began research for a
history of Ireland. As with his earlier work,
English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century was opinionated, favouring
Protestantism over
Catholicism and frequently attempting to justify
British rule in Ireland, particularly under
Oliver Cromwell (a deeply unpopular figure among Irish Catholics). Froude argued that Ireland's issues were the result of too little control from authorities in London, and that an even greater amount of British control—an "
enlightened despotism"—was needed to alleviate problems that were present in Ireland. In September 1872, Froude accepted an invitation to lecture in the
United States, where his work was also well-known. At that time, many Americans (particularly
Irish Americans) were opposed to British rule in Ireland, and Froude hoped to change their views. The lectures, widely discussed, raised the expected controversy, with opposition led by the
Dominican friar
Thomas Nicholas Burke. Opposition caused Froude to cut his trip short, and he returned to England disappointed both by his impression of America and by the results of his lectures. In England, too, Froude's Irish history had its critics, most notably
William Edward Hartpole Lecky in his
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, the first volumes of which were published in 1878, and in reviews in ''Macmillan's Magazine''. In February 1874, shortly before completion of
English in Ireland, Froude's wife Henrietta died, after which Froude moved from London to Wales. As a means of diversion, Froude travelled to the
Southern African
Colony of Natal, unofficially for
Colonial Secretary Lord Carnarvon, to report on the best means of promoting a
confederation of the colonies and states of southern Africa. This region, seen as vital for the security of the Empire, was only partially under British control. Confederating the various states under British rule was seen as the best way of peacefully establishing total imperial control and ending the autonomy of the remaining independent states.
Lord Carnavon On his second trip to Southern Africa in 1875, Froude was an imperial emissary charged with promoting confederation, a position which conflicted at times with his habit of lecturing on his personal political opinions. In the
Cape Colony, his public statements advocating the use of
forced labour on the indigenous
Xhosa people were particularly controversial given that the Cape Colony was under the rule of the relatively inclusive
Molteno-
Merriman Government, whose stated policy to treat its Xhosa citizens as "fellow subjects with white men" Froude accused of being "rabid in its anti-Imperialist stance". Relations were not improved by Froude's disdain for the Cape's local politics and of the "Cape politicians [who] strut about with their Constitution as a schoolboy newly promoted to a tail coat, and ... imagine that they have the privileges of perfect independence, while we are to defend their coasts and keep troops to protect them in case of Kaffir insurrection." Overall, though, the confederation scheme as promoted by Carnavon was not popular in the Southern African states, which were still simmering from the last bout of British imperial expansion (
President Brand of the
Orange Free State refused outright to even consider it). However, in his travels through different parts of southern Africa, Froude gained some support through publicly agitating for pet local causes. "Chameleon-like, his politics assumed the colour of his surroundings," was how the
Cape Argus newspaper described his strategy. The Cape Colony was by far the largest and most powerful state in the region, and Froude thus sought audience with its
prime minister,
John Molteno, to convey Carnarvon's request that he lead the region's states into Carnarvon's confederation scheme. However, Molteno rebuffed Froude, telling him that the confederation attempt was premature, that the country was "not ripe for it" and that his government would not support it in the politically volatile region. He made the additional point that any federation with the illiberal Boer republics would endanger the rights and franchise of the Cape's black citizens, and that overall "the proposals for confederation should emanate from the communities to be affected, and not be pressed upon them from outside." of the Cape,
Sir John Molteno Froude responded by openly allying with a radical white opposition party, the "Eastern Cape Separatists," promising a
baronetcy to its leader
Paterson if he would overthrow the Cape's elected government. In a public speech on 25 July 1876, challenging the Cape Government, he declared, "We want you to manage your natives as they do in Canada and Australia." He also promised to create a separate white Eastern Cape, and to impose a forced labour system onto the Cape's African population along "Transvaal lines" while confiscating Xhosa and
Basotho land for redistribution to white farmers. Molteno, furious, condemned Froude's statements, accused Froude of imperial interference in the Cape Colony's democracy, and told the
Colonial Office that he was prepared to sacrifice his job to keep the Cape out of such a confederation. Meanwhile, Merriman wrote to London accusing the "Imperial Agent" of desiring to subject and exterminate the Cape's Xhosa citizens. The Ministers of the
Cape Parliament went on to accuse Carnarvon of attempting to use the Cape to oppress the region and bring upon a war with the neighbouring Xhosa and Boer states. After Merriman confronted Froude in person, at an Uitenhage event which degenerated into fist fights, Froude gave no further public speeches. Froude's mission was thus ultimately considered unsuccessful, and caused considerable uproar in southern Africa. Nonetheless,
Lord Carnarvon pushed ahead with his Confederation plan, which predictably failed and led to the
confederation wars. On his return to London, Froude announced, If anybody had told me two years ago that I should be leading an agitation within Cape Colony, I should have thought my informant delirious. The (Cape) Ministers have the appearance of victory, but we have the substance. Froude's observations on Africa were presented in a Report to the
Secretary of State and a series of lectures for the Philosophical Society of
Edinburgh, both of which were adapted into essays for inclusion in Froude's essay collection
Short Studies on Great Subjects. In 1876 he was appointed to two
Royal Commissions, the first into the "Laws and Regulations relating to Home, Colonial, and International Copyright" In the absence of British rule, Froude argues that the Irish would have perished through infighting and famine, "for except for us they would have never been alive to suffer." In response,
John Lancaster Spalding wrote a rebuttal where he described Froude's article as pseudohistory and error-ridden.
Life of Carlyle controversy (1881–1903) '', 30 December 1882 Froude had been a close personal friend as well as an intellectual disciple of
Thomas Carlyle since 1861, and the two became even closer after the death of Carlyle's wife
Jane on 21 April 1866. Reading Jane's diaries and letters, Carlyle was struck by her unhappiness and his own irritability and inconsideration for her, and he decided to atone by writing her a memorial. In 1871, Carlyle gave Froude this memorial along with a bundle of Jane's personal papers, to be published after Carlyle's death, if Froude so decided. Also, Carlyle appointed Froude one of his own
literary executors, Crichton-Browne later corroborated that after one of Jane's illnesses, her personal doctor
Richard Quain sent word to Carlyle that he could "resume marital relations with his wife."
Aileen Christianson, citing the correspondence of both Carlyles, states: "It seems probable that they did have a sexual relationship, however curtailed in later marriage by illness and inclination, and that the later controversies over Thomas's 'impotence' or Jane's 'frigidity' were more to do with the posturing of the defenders of each side in the marriage than with the truth."
Froudacity Following completion of the
Life of Carlyle, Froude turned to travel, particularly to the British colonies, visiting
South Africa,
Australia,
New Zealand, the United States, and the
West Indies. From these travels he produced two books,
Oceana, or, England and Her Colonies (1886) and
The English in the West Indies, or The Bow of Ulysses (1888), which mixed personal anecdotes with Froude's thoughts on the
British Empire. Froude intended with these writings "to kindle in the public mind at home that imaginative enthusiasm for the Colonial idea of which his own heart was full". However, these books caused great controversy, stimulating rebuttals and the coining of the term
Froudacity by Afro-Trinidadian intellectual
John Jacob Thomas, who used it as the title of,
Froudacity. West Indian fables by J. A. Froude explained by J. J. Thomas, his book-length critique of
The English in the West Indies.
Later life (1885–1894) During this time Froude also wrote a
historical novel,
The Two Chiefs of Dunboy, which was the least popular of his mature works. As with his earlier book on Irish history, Froude used the book to turn an Irish hero into a villain with historical distortion. On the death of his adversary
Edward Augustus Freeman in 1892, Froude was appointed, on the recommendation of
Lord Salisbury, to succeed him as
Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford. The choice was controversial, for Froude's predecessors had been among his harshest critics, and his works were generally considered literary works rather than books of serious history suited for academia. Nevertheless, his lectures were very popular, largely because of the depth and variety of Froude's experience and he soon became a Fellow of
Oriel. Froude lectured mainly on the
English Reformation, "English Sea-Men in the Sixteenth Century", and
Erasmus. The demanding lecture schedule was too much for the ageing Froude. In 1894 he retired to Woodcot in
Kingsbridge, Devonshire. He died on 20 October 1894 and is buried in
Salcombe Cemetery. ==Family==