Reminiscences of Professor Chaloner*
On Tuesday afternoon, 30 July 1985, I met Bill Chaloner in the senior common room in Moberly Tower of the University of Manchester. Douglas Farnie arranged the meeting for me, and Prof. [T. S.] Willan was with us. I had written him and had a telephone talk in August 1982, and he remembered me well. Perhaps it was because I wrote to him about Thomas Percival, an eighteenth-century Oldham antiquarian gentleman, a rare interest for a Japanese historian.
The conversation in the senior common room extended to quotations and references, and Douglas made use of the occasion to inquire about the source of one of Bill's favourite quotations:
'You quoted in a lecture, "Good style is a curse to a good historian",After a scrupulous and amicable exchange Bill concluded, pointing to his head,
as from Macaulay. Will you tell me when and where he said that?
I could not find it in my dictionary of quotations'.
'Oh, it's certainly from Macaulay, and it's here in my brain'.It was an enjoyable afternoon conversation, and we left the common room when we were being shut out. 'This may be the last I see you', Bill said, holding my hand. 'No, this will not', I replied. Certainly not. In the late morning the next Tuesday I saw him for several minutes at the entrance of Moberly Tower, when he was with Douglas. We talked about my departure and parcels to Japan, and my forthcoming publications. One of the publications I wanted him to read, 'The workhouse issue at Manchester: Selected documents, 1729--35 (Part I)', came out too late. When I sent a copy to him in the summer of 1987, it was Douglas who wrote back enclosing newspaper obituaries of Bill Chaloner.
* William Henry Chaloner,
M.A., Ph.D., 1914-1987,
Professor of Economic History, University
of Manchester.