author
Goldwin Smith
1823–1910
A sharp, outspoken historian and public thinker, this British-born writer built a reputation on fearless opinions in Britain, the United States, and Canada. His work ranged from university reform and politics to essays and histories that kept him in public debate for decades.
7 Audiobooks
Cowper
by Goldwin Smith
No Refuge but in Truth
by Goldwin Smith
Lectures and Essays
by Goldwin Smith
Irish History and the Irish Question
by Goldwin Smith
The Religious Situation
by Goldwin Smith
Oxford and Her Colleges: A View from the Radcliffe Library
by Goldwin Smith
My Memory of Gladstone
by Goldwin Smith
About the author
Born in Reading, England, in 1823, Goldwin Smith studied at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford, where his academic success led to a fellowship at University College. He later became Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford and took part in efforts to reform the university.
After time in the United States, including service at Cornell University, he settled in Toronto in the early 1870s. There he became a major public voice through essays, journalism, lectures, and political commentary, and he remained an influential figure in Canadian intellectual life until his death in 1910.
Smith was admired for his clarity, learning, and strong prose, but he was also a controversial figure whose political and social views often provoked argument. That mix of scholarship and sharp opinion helped make him one of the best-known English-speaking men of letters in North America in his era.