Douglas Woodruff

John Douglas Woodruff (1897–1978) was the editor of the Tablet and later chairman of the Catholic publishers Burns & Oates.

Douglas Woodruff
Born1897
Died1978
Occupations
  • Editor of Tablet magazine
  • Chairman of Burns & Oates

Biography

Douglas Woodruff was educated at Downside School and New College, Oxford.[1] At Oxford, he was a member of the Union's debating team; his lifelong friend Christopher Hollis was in the team as well, and they successfully toured the world.[2] Oxford's professor, Maurice Bowra, suspected that already at college Woodruff "was a Roman Catholic of the proselytizing kind, who therefore represented an immediate threat to his own flock".[3] Woodruff was a close and influential friend of Evelyn Waugh.[4]

From 1936 to 1967 he was the editor of the Tablet, making the periodical the leading voice of English Catholicism, and from 1948 to 1962 he was the chairman of the Catholic publishers Burns & Oates.[1] He was an expert and essayist on Hilaire Belloc.[2] Woodruff first met Belloc in Oxford in the autumn of 1920, having been introduced to him because he had been a friend and contemporary of Louis Belloc at Downside School.[5]

Woodruff was part of the Catholic right-wing, and, according to Martin Redfern, one of his employees at the Tablet, he wanted a clear separation between politics and religion.[6] In Pope Paul's New Mass, Michael Davies introduced him as "probably England's most erudite layman".[7]

Personal life

In 1933 he married Hon. Marie Immaculeé Antoinette Lyon-Dalberg-Acton (1905–1994), widely known as ‘Mia’ (from her initials). She was the eldest child of Richard Lyon-Dalberg-Acton, 2nd Baron Acton and Dorothy Lyon.[2]

Works
  • Plato's American Republic, 1926, K. Paul, Trench, Trubner[8]
  • The Merry Jests of the Widow Edyth, 1929[9]
  • Expansion and Emigration in Early Victorian England: 1830–1865 ed. G. M. Young, 1934, Oxford University Press[10]
  • Charlemagne, 1935, D. Appleton-Century Company[11]
  • The first stage – from London to Paris in Grand tour; a journey in the tracks of the age of aristocracy, conducted by Mona Wilson, Douglas Woodruff, Edmund Blunden and others..., ed. Richard Stanton Lambert, 1937, E. P. Dutton & co.[12]
  • The story of the British colonial empire, 1939, H. M. Stationery off[13]
  • For Hilaire Belloc: Essays in Honor of His 71st birthday, editor, 1942[2]
  • Still Talking at Random, 1948, Hollis & Carter[14]
  • Essays on Church and Stateted, 1952, Hollis & Carter[15]
  • Walrus talk, 1954, Hollis & Carter[16]
  • The Tichborne Claimant: A Victorian Mystery, 1957, Hollis & Carter[17]
  • The Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Catholicism, 1961, Hawthorn Books[18]
  • Church and State, 1961, Hawthorn Books[19]
  • The Life and Times of Alfred the Great, 1993, Weidenfeld and Nicolson[20]

Legacy

Douglas Woodruff Papers are preserved at the Georgetown University.[2]

References
  1. Carpenter, Humphrey (1990). The Brideshead Generation: Evelyn Waugh and His Friends. Faber & Faber. Kindle Edition. p. 496. ISBN 9780571144143. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  2. Corrin, Jay P. (2010). Catholic Intellectuals and the Challenge of Democracy. University of Notre Dame Press. p. 358. ISBN 9780268159283. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  3. Mitchell, Leslie (2010). Maurice Bowra: A Life. OUP Oxford. p. 59. ISBN 9780199589333. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  4. Pearce, Joseph (2006). Literary Converts: Spiritual Inspiration in an Age of Unbelief. Ignatius Press. p. 154. ISBN 9781586171599. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  5. Pearce, Joseph. Old Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc. TAN Books. p. 240. ISBN 9781618907318. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  6. Corrin, Jay P. (2013). Catholic Progressives in England after Vatican II. University of Notre Dame Press. p. 418. ISBN 9780268077006. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  7. Daly, John S. (2015). Michael Davies – An Evaluation. p. 37. ISBN 9782917813515. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  8. Plato's American Republic
  9. The Merry Jests of the Widow Edyth
  10. Wagner, Tamara S (2016). Victorian Narratives of Failed Emigration: Settlers, Returnees, and Nineteenth-Century Literature in English. Routledge. p. 33. ISBN 9781317002178. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  11. Charlemagne
  12. Catalog of Copyright Entries. Part 1. [A] Group 1. Books. New Series. 1938. p. 73. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  13. The story of the British colonial empire
  14. Still Talking at Random
  15. Novak, Michael (2017). The Open Church. Routledge. p. 143. ISBN 9781351478144. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  16. Walrus talk
  17. The Tichborne Claimant: A Victorian Mystery
  18. The Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Catholicism
  19. Church and State, Volume 89
  20. The Life and Times of Alfred the Great
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