Spenser Wilkinson

Henry Spenser Wilkinson (1 May 1853 – 31 January 1937) was the first Chichele Professor of Military History at Oxford University. While he was an English writer known primarily for his work on military subjects, he had wide interests. Earlier in his career he was the drama critic for London's Morning Post.

Early life and education The second son of Thomas Read Wilkinson, a banker, and his wife Emma Wolfenden, he was born in Hulme. He was educated at Owens College, Manchester and studied at Merton College, Oxford in 1873–1878. While at Oxford, he became interested in armies and began his lifelong interest in military affairs. As an undergraduate, he joined the Oxford Volunteers. After Oxford, he read law at Lincoln's Inn and was called to the bar in 1880. On returning to Manchester in 1880, he took a commission in the volunteers and also founded the Manchester Tactical Society.

In 1888, Wilkinson married Victoria Crowe (1868–1929), daughter of Sir Joseph Archer Crowe and niece of the artist Eyre Crowe. Together, he and his wife had two sons and four daughters. Britain at Bay (1909) Hannibal's March through the Alps (1911) First Lessons in War (1914) The French Army before Napoleon (1915) The Nation's Servants (1916) The Defence of Piedmont, 1742–1748: A Prelude to the Study of Napoleon (1927)

For on-line examples of Wilkinson's writings, see: Strategy in the Navy, The Morning Post, 3 August 1909. This essay is essentially an attack on the influential British naval theorist Julian Stafford Corbett's interpretation of Clausewitz and on Corbett's influence on the Royal Navy. Killing No Murder: An Examination of Some New Theories of War, Army Quarterly 14 (October 1927). This is a bitingly critical response to B.H. Liddell Hart's book, The Remaking of Modern Armies (London: J. Murray, 1927).