Romney Sedgwick

Richard Romney Sedgwick (29 May 1894 - 20 January 1972)^[1] was a British historian, civil servant and diplomat.^[2] He was the elder son of Professor Adam Sedgwick, 1854-1913, and Laura Helen Elizabeth Robinson.^[3] He married Mana St David Hodson, daughter of Professor T.C.Hodson,^[4] in 1936; they had one son and one daughter.^[5]

Sedgwick was educated at Weestminster School and Trinity College Cambridge. He became a Fellow of the College in 1919.^[6]

His work for The History of Parliament showed that the Whig versus Tory dichotomy survived in the reigns of George I and George II.^[7]

Eveline Cruickshanks wrote a book on the Tories and the Jacobite Rising of 1745 and said: "My greatest debt is to the late Romney Sedgwick, a staunch Whig, whose wit and erudition I greatly admired, for a series of discussions, heated at times, but, as I well know, much enjoyed on both sides".^[8]

Works

• ‘The Inner Cabinet from 1739 to 1741’, English Historical Review 34 (1919), pp. 290–302.
• John, Lord Hervey, Some Materials towards Memoirs of the Reign of King George II (editor, 3 volumes, 1931).
• ‘Sir Robert Walpole 1676-1745: The Minister for the House of Commons’, Times Literary Supplement (24 March 1945), pp. 133–134.
• The House of Commons 1715-1754 (editor, 2 volumes, 1970).

Notes