Charles Hubert Oldham (1859-1926)
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| [C. H. Oldham; err. 1860-20]; b. Monkstown, Co. Dublin, so of prosperous silk importer with premises at Westmoreland St.; entered TCD as Schol.; grad. in mathematics and physics, with gold medals, ; became nationalist at TCD; bar, and Northern Circuit; first principal of Rathmines School of Commerce; fnd. Contemporary Club, with Douglas Hyde and others, 1885; T. W. Rolleston, fnd. Dublin University Review, 1885-87 - a platform of new Irish writing and Home Rule sentiment; fnd. ed the Contemporary Club, at College Green, Nov. 1885; |
grad. BL from TCD and briefly worked as a barrister in Belfast and there fnd. Irish Protestant Home Rule Association, 1886 - encouraged by Gladstone and James Bryce; returned to Dublin to practice law, with office at 33 Leeson St.; turned to teaching mathematics; appt. Sec. of Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland [SSISI], 1900 and ViP in 1908; served as Principal of the Rathmines School of Commerce; appt. to chair of Commerce at National Univ. of Ireland, 1909; promoted to Chair of Economics at the death of Thomas Kettle, 1916-26; Oldham chaired the first meeting of Irish Volunteers [var. Citizen Army], held in rooms of R. M. Gwynn, FTCD, 1913; published works include notably Economic Development in Ireland (1900); |
also The Economic and Industrial Condition of Ireland (1909), The Public Finances of Ireland (1911) and other works; jointly edited posthum. verse of Ellen O’Leary with Maud Gonne as Lays of Country, Home and Friends (1891), with an introduction by Rolleston; his sister Alice (1850–1907) taught at Alexandra Coll, Dublin, and campaigned for the admission of women to TCD; his wife fnd. the Irish Women's Franchise League, with Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, Margaret Cousins, et. al., in 1908; their dg. Edith, a musician, m. R. I. Best in 1906. DIH |
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Works
Technical Education for Commerce (1902); The Economic and Industrial Condition of Ireland (1909); The History of Belfast Shipbuilding (1910); The Public Finances of Ireland (1911); The Keystone The Woollen Industry of Ireland (1909); The Keystone of Irish Finance (1912); Some Perplexities in Regard to the Agricultural Statistics of Ireland (1924).
See also The Present “Taxable Capacity” of Ireland: A paper read to the Statistical and social inquiry society of Ireland, on Tuesday, 28th June, 1921 (Dublin, Messrs. E. Ponsonby, Ltd), 30pp. [pamphlet held in Harvard (Hollis Lib.) notified by Ed Hagan, Irish List 1997.]
Oldham edited the Dublin University Review (1885-87) and the North and South (1887), the short-lived journal of the Irish Protestant Home Rule Association.
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Commentary
Dominic Daly, The Young Douglas Hyde (1974): He established the Contemporary Club, and collaborated with Maud Gonne in published Ellen O’Leary’s posthumous verse, Lays of Country, Home and Friends. His Dublin University, Review ‘had the crowning glory of introducing W. B. Yeats to the world’, according to Katherine Tynan, who was actually introduced to Yeats by Oldham (see Tynan, Memories, London 1924, p.276, and Twenty-five Years, London 1918, pp.140-43.) [n., 203.] Yeats gives an account of the Contemporary Club in Autobiographies (Macmillan 1955): ‘In Ireland harsh argument which had gone out of fashion in England was still the manner of our conversation, and at this club Unionist and Nationalist could interrupt one another and insult one another without the formal and traditional restraint of public speech. Sometimes they change subject and discuss Socialism, or a philosophical question, to discover their old passions under a new shape.’ (p.93; here p.69.) Maud Gonne likewise described in A Servant of the Queen (pp.84-99), writing: ‘I felt sorry for him, but soon realised I need not; attacks, even personal ones, rolled off him like water from a duck’s back as he smilingly put on the kettle ...’. A further account is given by Prof. Mary Macken, in an article in Studies, March 1939, p.138. (Daly, p.56.) Contemporary Club guests included William Morris, whose address caused a riotous protest from hyper-Catholic workers on the floor of a public meeting [78], and Sydney Webb [n. 218]. See also A. N. Jeffares, W. B. Yeats, A New Biography (1988). Daly supplied the bio-dates 1860-1920 (p.203, n.)
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Notes
Kith & Kin: his dg. Edith married R. I. Best [q.v.]; there is a portrait of her by Sarah Celia Harrison in the National Gallery of Ireland. See also under Best, where Oldham is placed at UCD.
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