hello this is a story of how the most
miserable in human affairs can lead to
the most noble it is in short a story
emblematic of the human condition with
all its contradictions it is a story
which tells us our institutions of
knowledge and fields of study can come
into existence and perhaps most
importantly it is a story of how
individuals can change the world even if
they think they failed and the origins
of the story is the experience of World
War one the stories chief characters a
brother and two sisters all witnessed
the carnage and the horrors of the World
War one on the Western Front it was out
of this encounter that they forged what
I would argue is the great wars greatest
living memorial the endowment of the
Woodrow Wilson tear in international
politics at the University College of
Wales in other histories in November
1918 as the war finally ground to a halt
among the millions who lost their lives
on the battlefield were more than 100
students of other state the three
siblings central to this story David
Gwendolyn and Margaret Davis of
Clendenen where key movers behind an
exceptional effort that would
commemorate their sacrifice guided on
the one hand by the question how to
commemorate those who lost their lives
in the war and on the other hand by the
practical aspiration to do something so
that a world could be built were such
tragedies and horrors would not be
repeated or would be less likely to
occur
in the future they made a bold
preposition David Davis wrote to the
president of the University College a
letter giving a most generous offer
it began with the words it has occurred
to my sisters and myself that the
University of Wales and the College
Council may be willing to allow us to
found a chair in international politics
and there are in the memory of the
Fallen students of our University this
was a key move that led to the
establishment of the world’s first
department of international politics and
the institutionalization of a new field
of study a field of study which 100
years on is extremely vibrant globally
and as a colleague of mine professor Ken
booth likes to put it asks the biggest
political questions on the biggest
political stage members of one of the
most famous families in Wales the Davis
siblings
announced their readiness to donate as
much as twenty thousand pounds the words
the cause to give you an idea today’s
economic equivalent of this would be
about eight and a half million pounds
they also suggested that the chair be
named in honor of the American President
Woodrow Wilson their offer was
enthusiastically accepted by the College
Council in December 1918 the founders
stipulated that the core mission of the
new department was the need for
considering all the peoples of the world
as one and the encouragement of a truer
understanding of civilizations other
than our own
in their view it was entirely
appropriate that a university in
Aberystwyth should and could
play a leading role in these efforts as
the memorandum between the college and
the Davis family noted research is
universal and depends upon zeal and
opportunity and not at all together upon
place yet despite the tone of the
memorandum the close connections and all
that the Davis family had done for the
University College Aberystwyth was
perhaps not the most obvious place where
to start the hugely ambitious project of
setting up a new academic discipline in
fact the oldest no document relating to
the endowment of the Woodrow Wilson
chair that we have in our university
archives and which was recently
uncovered by our archivist Julie Archer
suggests that there were rather
different plans in the beginning it is a
copy of a letter which relates some of
the effort it took to convince David
Davis to endow the chair in Aberystwyth
rather than to create the Wilson chair
in Oxford and another chair in Strasburg
two places which he originally had in
mind as the writer of the letter noted I
fought with all my might for the farmer
at Aberystwyth and was well backed by
avarice twist may also have been a
somewhat unexpected place to start a new
academic discipline as it certainly did
not begin as it certainly did not give
the impression of a cosmopolitan place
when in early March 1919 David Davis
proposed to the college to appoint
alfred Zimmern an eminent historian and
a member of the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office the proposition was received
was a mixture of excitement and
puzzlement a contemporary wrote to
Zimmern My dear Zimmern at yesterday’s
counsel David Davis’s letter nominating
you was read there were some whispers is
he a German one of the ladies who asked
me this question however was very much
relieved when she was told that you had
been through in Chester giving some
sense of how quickly things moved back
then Zimmern
along with the lecturer Sydney Herbert
were appointed to their tenures on the
25th of April 1919 alas this was not a
story of success foretold Zimmern left
after two years his successor Charles
Webster spent much of his time traveling
abroad chiefly lecturing at Harvard
University which struck a deal with AB
Restless for five years which untitled
Webster to spend a semester each year in
the United States
Harvard likewise poached the third world
through Wilson professor Jeremy Greene
was appointed director of of their
thirst centenary celebrations in 1934 in
the 1930s moreover the generous
endowment took a bit of a hit as a
result of the Great Depression and most
importantly the number of students
studying the new subject remained low in
the view of one of the holders of the
Wilson chair this was due to the fact
that the subject calls for considerable
preliminary preparation and for a degree
of intellectual maturity which is none
too common at the undergraduate stage
perhaps most notably davis repeatedly
disapproved of the political positions
taken by his prefer
as an enthusiastic supporter of the
League of Nations he did not approve of
Zimmern skepticism about the institution
he found it disappointing that Jerome
Green did not support the use of
economic sanctions to maintain
international rule of law but his
greatest dislike was reserved for the
most famous of all wills and professors
Edward Hallett car car in his decisive
critique of international institutions a
post and demolished most everything that
Davis believed in to protest his
appointment
Davis resigned from the position of the
president of the college and from 36
onwards C’s to attend the meetings of
the church Advisory Board far from
letting go however he felt a deep sense
of disappointment accessor baited of
course by the outbreak of another world
war a war which he worked so much and so
hard to avoid he criticized the
department and its professors for not
furthering his vision of creating the
League of Nations with a real
international authority he unvisited
as he sent an educational structure that
would create a new outlook upon the
whole field of international relations
instead in his view it seems to have
failed and like so many good intentions
has only helped to pave a road which is
once more landed us in another hell
little wonder then that in the middle of
the second world war he wrote about the
chair and the study of international
politics the following I wish to God
I had never initiated this proposal but
was the perceived failure due to the
measure of success rather than the
actual accomplishment of the enterprise
the Davis siblings started the fact that
they created an institution and a
discipline in which ideas about
international politics could be
systematically analyzed and critically
examined is a great achievement the fact
that their example was quickly emulated
by many other universities shows that
the appeal of the institution was wide
the fact that a watt that the vast
majority of universities today have
their equivalent of international
politics department and that the subject
is studied by hundreds of thousands of
students around the globe means that
Davis and his sisters built a unique
living monument to those who died in the
first world war
ideas the movers of human activity need
a proper thrashing to find out what
their worth international politics as a
discipline does precisely that and as a
result there is little we tend to agree
upon there is one thing however that
connects us it is the preoccupation with
the proposition that how we relate to
the world how we relate to others
defines the world we live in and for the
human condition it makes a great deal of
difference whether we think about the
world from the narrow confines of a
nation and what is best for it
or whether we set out to consider all
the peoples of the world as one
and we aim to achieve and encourage a
truer understanding of civilizations
other than our own thank you [Applause]
miserable in human affairs can lead to
the most noble it is in short a story
emblematic of the human condition with
all its contradictions it is a story
which tells us our institutions of
knowledge and fields of study can come
into existence and perhaps most
importantly it is a story of how
individuals can change the world even if
they think they failed and the origins
of the story is the experience of World
War one the stories chief characters a
brother and two sisters all witnessed
the carnage and the horrors of the World
War one on the Western Front it was out
of this encounter that they forged what
I would argue is the great wars greatest
living memorial the endowment of the
Woodrow Wilson tear in international
politics at the University College of
Wales in other histories in November
1918 as the war finally ground to a halt
among the millions who lost their lives
on the battlefield were more than 100
students of other state the three
siblings central to this story David
Gwendolyn and Margaret Davis of
Clendenen where key movers behind an
exceptional effort that would
commemorate their sacrifice guided on
the one hand by the question how to
commemorate those who lost their lives
in the war and on the other hand by the
practical aspiration to do something so
that a world could be built were such
tragedies and horrors would not be
repeated or would be less likely to
occur
in the future they made a bold
preposition David Davis wrote to the
president of the University College a
letter giving a most generous offer
it began with the words it has occurred
to my sisters and myself that the
University of Wales and the College
Council may be willing to allow us to
found a chair in international politics
and there are in the memory of the
Fallen students of our University this
was a key move that led to the
establishment of the world’s first
department of international politics and
the institutionalization of a new field
of study a field of study which 100
years on is extremely vibrant globally
and as a colleague of mine professor Ken
booth likes to put it asks the biggest
political questions on the biggest
political stage members of one of the
most famous families in Wales the Davis
siblings
announced their readiness to donate as
much as twenty thousand pounds the words
the cause to give you an idea today’s
economic equivalent of this would be
about eight and a half million pounds
they also suggested that the chair be
named in honor of the American President
Woodrow Wilson their offer was
enthusiastically accepted by the College
Council in December 1918 the founders
stipulated that the core mission of the
new department was the need for
considering all the peoples of the world
as one and the encouragement of a truer
understanding of civilizations other
than our own
in their view it was entirely
appropriate that a university in
Aberystwyth should and could
play a leading role in these efforts as
the memorandum between the college and
the Davis family noted research is
universal and depends upon zeal and
opportunity and not at all together upon
place yet despite the tone of the
memorandum the close connections and all
that the Davis family had done for the
University College Aberystwyth was
perhaps not the most obvious place where
to start the hugely ambitious project of
setting up a new academic discipline in
fact the oldest no document relating to
the endowment of the Woodrow Wilson
chair that we have in our university
archives and which was recently
uncovered by our archivist Julie Archer
suggests that there were rather
different plans in the beginning it is a
copy of a letter which relates some of
the effort it took to convince David
Davis to endow the chair in Aberystwyth
rather than to create the Wilson chair
in Oxford and another chair in Strasburg
two places which he originally had in
mind as the writer of the letter noted I
fought with all my might for the farmer
at Aberystwyth and was well backed by
avarice twist may also have been a
somewhat unexpected place to start a new
academic discipline as it certainly did
not begin as it certainly did not give
the impression of a cosmopolitan place
when in early March 1919 David Davis
proposed to the college to appoint
alfred Zimmern an eminent historian and
a member of the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office the proposition was received
was a mixture of excitement and
puzzlement a contemporary wrote to
Zimmern My dear Zimmern at yesterday’s
counsel David Davis’s letter nominating
you was read there were some whispers is
he a German one of the ladies who asked
me this question however was very much
relieved when she was told that you had
been through in Chester giving some
sense of how quickly things moved back
then Zimmern
along with the lecturer Sydney Herbert
were appointed to their tenures on the
25th of April 1919 alas this was not a
story of success foretold Zimmern left
after two years his successor Charles
Webster spent much of his time traveling
abroad chiefly lecturing at Harvard
University which struck a deal with AB
Restless for five years which untitled
Webster to spend a semester each year in
the United States
Harvard likewise poached the third world
through Wilson professor Jeremy Greene
was appointed director of of their
thirst centenary celebrations in 1934 in
the 1930s moreover the generous
endowment took a bit of a hit as a
result of the Great Depression and most
importantly the number of students
studying the new subject remained low in
the view of one of the holders of the
Wilson chair this was due to the fact
that the subject calls for considerable
preliminary preparation and for a degree
of intellectual maturity which is none
too common at the undergraduate stage
perhaps most notably davis repeatedly
disapproved of the political positions
taken by his prefer
as an enthusiastic supporter of the
League of Nations he did not approve of
Zimmern skepticism about the institution
he found it disappointing that Jerome
Green did not support the use of
economic sanctions to maintain
international rule of law but his
greatest dislike was reserved for the
most famous of all wills and professors
Edward Hallett car car in his decisive
critique of international institutions a
post and demolished most everything that
Davis believed in to protest his
appointment
Davis resigned from the position of the
president of the college and from 36
onwards C’s to attend the meetings of
the church Advisory Board far from
letting go however he felt a deep sense
of disappointment accessor baited of
course by the outbreak of another world
war a war which he worked so much and so
hard to avoid he criticized the
department and its professors for not
furthering his vision of creating the
League of Nations with a real
international authority he unvisited
as he sent an educational structure that
would create a new outlook upon the
whole field of international relations
instead in his view it seems to have
failed and like so many good intentions
has only helped to pave a road which is
once more landed us in another hell
little wonder then that in the middle of
the second world war he wrote about the
chair and the study of international
politics the following I wish to God
I had never initiated this proposal but
was the perceived failure due to the
measure of success rather than the
actual accomplishment of the enterprise
the Davis siblings started the fact that
they created an institution and a
discipline in which ideas about
international politics could be
systematically analyzed and critically
examined is a great achievement the fact
that their example was quickly emulated
by many other universities shows that
the appeal of the institution was wide
the fact that a watt that the vast
majority of universities today have
their equivalent of international
politics department and that the subject
is studied by hundreds of thousands of
students around the globe means that
Davis and his sisters built a unique
living monument to those who died in the
first world war
ideas the movers of human activity need
a proper thrashing to find out what
their worth international politics as a
discipline does precisely that and as a
result there is little we tend to agree
upon there is one thing however that
connects us it is the preoccupation with
the proposition that how we relate to
the world how we relate to others
defines the world we live in and for the
human condition it makes a great deal of
difference whether we think about the
world from the narrow confines of a
nation and what is best for it
or whether we set out to consider all
the peoples of the world as one
and we aim to achieve and encourage a
truer understanding of civilizations
other than our own thank you [Applause]
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