F. M. Cornford

Francis Macdonald Cornford FBA (27 February 1874 – 3 January 1943) was an English classical scholar and translator known for influential work on ancient philosophy, notably Plato, Parmenides, Thucydides, and ancient Greek religion. Frances Cornford, his wife, was a noted poet. Due to the similarity of their forenames, he was known to family as "FMC" and his wife as "FCC".[2]

F. M. Cornford FBA
Born	Francis Macdonald Cornford (1874-02-27)27 February 1874 Eastbourne, England
Died	3 January 1943(1943-01-03) (aged 68) Cambridge, England
Spouse(s)	Frances Cornford ( m. 1909)
Children	Helena Darwin Cornford John Cornford Christopher Cornford Hugh Cornford Ruth Chapman
Academic background
Alma mater	Trinity College, Cambridge
Influences	Gilbert Murray[1] A. W. Verrall[1]
Academic work
Discipline	Classics
Institutions	Trinity College, Cambridge
Notable students	W. K. C. Guthrie

Early life and family

Cornford was born in Eastbourne, Sussex, on 27 February 1874.[2] He attended St Paul's School, London.[2]

In 1909 Cornford married the poet Frances Darwin, daughter of Sir Francis Darwin and Ellen Wordsworth Darwin, née Crofts, and a granddaughter of Charles Darwin. They had five children:

• Helena (1913–1994), married Joseph L. Henderson[3] in 1934
• John (1915–1936), poet and Communist who was killed in the Spanish Civil War
• Christopher (1917–1993), artist and writer; the father of Adam Cornford
• Hugh Wordsworth (1921–1997), medical doctor[4]
• Ruth Clare (1923–1992), the mother of Matthew Chapman

Academic career

Cornford was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a Fellow from 1899 and held a teaching post from 1902.[5] He became the first Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy in 1931 and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1937.[2] He used wit and satire to propagate proposals for reforming the teaching of the classics at Cambridge, in Microcosmographia Academica (1908).[2]

He died on 3 January 1943 in his home, Conduit Head in Cambridge.[2] He was cremated at Cambridge Crematorium on 6 January 1943.[2]

Works

• Thucydides Mythistoricus (1907) argued that Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War was informed by Thucydides' tragic view.
• From Religion to Philosophy: A Study in the Origins of Western Speculation (1912) sought the deep religious and social concepts that informed the early Greek philosophers. He returned to this in Principium Sapientiae: The Origins of Greek Philosophical Thought (posthumous, 1952).
• Microcosmographia Academica (1908), an insider's satire on academic politics, was the source of catch phrases such as the "doctrine of unripeness of time", "principle of the wedge", and "principle of the dangerous precedent".[6][7]
• According to the preface to The Republic of Plato, translated with an introduction and notes (OUP, 1941), it "aims at conveying... as much as possible of the thought of the Republic in the most convenient and least misleading form."

See also

• Jane Ellen Harrison
• Conduit Head
• Esther Salaman

References

Footnotes

1. Johnson 2008, p. 2.
2. Hackforth & Gill 2004.
3. Pearce, Jeremy (4 December 2007). "Joseph L. Henderson, 104; Expanded Jungian Methods". The New York Times. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
4. Hartog 1998.
5. "Cornford, Francis Macdonald (CNFT893FM)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
6. Wilby, Peter (4 May 2009). "Pass the Sickbag, Alice". New Statesman. Vol. 138 no. 4947. London. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
7. "Slavery Was Theft: We Should Pay". New Statesman. London. 10 September 2001. Retrieved 13 November 2019.

Bibliography

Hackforth, Reginald; Gill, David (2004). "Cornford, Francis Macdonald (1874–1943)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32571.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

Hartog, Martin (1998). "Obituaries: Hugh Wordsworth Cornford". BMJ. 316 (7136): 1023. ISSN 1756-1833. PMC 1112870. PMID 9552882.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

Johnson, Gordon (2008). University Politics: F. M. Cornford's Cambridge and His Advice to the Young Academic Politician (2nd ed.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-89789-1.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

External links

• Microcosmographia Academica online
• British Academy Fellowship entry
• The Origin of Attic Comedy (1914)
• Greek Religious Thought from Homer to the Age of Alexander (1923)
• Greek Natural Philosophy and Modern Science a Lecture (1938)
• Works by Francis Macdonald Cornford at Faded Page (Canada)
• Works by or about F. M. Cornford in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Trinity College Chapel
• F. M. Cornford at Find a Grave

Academic offices
New office	Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy 1930–1939	Succeeded by Reginald Hackforth