Desmond Lee

Sir Henry Desmond Pritchard Lee (30 August 1908 – 8 December 1993) was an English classical scholar specialising in ancient philosophy who became a Fellow and tutor of Corpus Christi College at Cambridge University, a lecturer in the university, and then Headmaster successively of Clifton College and Winchester College, before ending his career back at Cambridge University as President of Hughes Hall.

Early life

Born in Nottingham, the son of the Rev. Canon Henry Burgass Lee, the young Lee was educated at Arden House, then at Repton School, where he held the George Denman scholarship, before going on to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he was again a scholar and gained a Double First, with Firsts in Part 1 of the Classical Tripos in 1928 and in Part 2 in 1930. He also gained a Charles Oldham scholarship.

While he was still an undergraduate at Cambridge, Lee became a friend of the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951), in 1930 staying with the Wittgenstein family in Austria. Many years later, in editing Wittgenstein's Lectures: Cambridge, 1930–1932, Lee wrote an account of their friendship, which came to an end after the focus of Lee's academic career turned to ancient philosophy. His other friends during this period included William Empson.

Career

Lee was elected a fellow of Corpus Christi College in 1933. From 1935 to 1948 he was also a college tutor, from 1937 to 1948 a university lecturer in Classics, and in 1944 he became a member of the university's Council of the Senate, serving until 1948. From 1941 until 1944, during the Second World War, he also worked in the regional commissioner's office at Cambridge, assisting Will Spens. and translations with commentary of Aristotle's Meteorologica (1952), Plato's Republic (1955) and his dialogues Timæus and Critias (1971). He wrote: Quote|Plato has been criticized for his Foundation Myth as if it were a calculated lie. That is partly because the phrase here translated 'magnificent myth' has been conventionally mistranslated 'noble lie'; and this has been used to support the charge that Plato countenances manipulation by propaganda. But the myth is accepted by all three classes, Guardians included. It is meant to replace the national traditions which any community has, which are intended to express the kind of community it is, or wishes to be, its ideals, rather than to state matters of fact."

Private life In 1935, Lee married Elizabeth, daughter of Colonel A. Crookenden CBE DSO, and they had one son and two daughters. (NB: The 2008 revised edition omits the Appendix on Atlantis) Entry and Performance at Oxford and Cambridge, 1966–71, 1972 Wittgenstein's Lectures 1930–32 (ed.), 1980