Robert Hebert Quick

Born in Harrow on September 30, 1831, he was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating in 1854 and being ordained the following year. He later taught at Cranleigh School and Harrow, bringing together classroom experience, scholarship, and a strong interest in how education developed over time.

He is best known for Essays on Educational Reformers, first published in 1868 and later expanded, a book that traces the ideas of major education thinkers and reformers. He also wrote on Friedrich Fröbel, edited John Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education, and prepared an edition of Richard Mulcaster’s Positions.

Quick was the first person to lecture at Cambridge on the history of education, beginning in 1879 for the teachers’ training syndicate. Later writers have described him as one of the leading figures in the early “Whig” school of educational history, and his personal library went on to form much of the Quick Memorial Library collection in the University of London’s research library.