Lord Edward Christian David Gascoyne-Cecil, CH was a British biographer, historian, and scholar. He held the style of "Lord" by courtesy, as a younger son of a marquess.
Early life and studies
David Cecil was the youngest of the four children of James Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury, and the former Lady Cicely Gore. His siblings were Lady Beatrice Edith Mildred Cecil, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury and Lady Mary Alice Cecil. Cecil was a delicate child, suffering from a tubercular gland in his neck at the age of 8 years, and after an operation he spent a great deal of time in bed, where he developed his love of reading. Because of his delicate health his parents sent him to Eton College later than other boys, and he survived the experience by spending one day a week in bed. After school he went on to Christ Church, Oxford, as an undergraduate.
Career
Cecil read Modern History at Oxford and in 1924 obtained first-class honours. From 1924 to 1930 he was a Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford. With his first publication, The Stricken Deer, a sympathetic study of the poet Cowper, he made an immediate impact as a literary historian. Studies followed on Walter Scott, early Victorian novelists and Jane Austen. In 1939 he became a Fellow of New College, Oxford, where he remained a Fellow until 1969, when he became an Honorary Fellow. In 1947 he became Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College, London, for a year; but in 1948 he returned to the University of Oxford and remained a Professor of English Literature there until 1970. For a time Cecil was an associate of the literary group known as the "Inklings", which included notable authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Owen Barfield. While a professor at New College Cecil's pupils included Kingsley Amis, R. K. Sinha, John Bayley, the Milton scholar Dennis Burden, and Ludovic Kennedy. Neil Powell describes Amis's relationship with him, or lack of a relationship, as follows:
allocated supervisor was Lord David Cecil, who seemed disinclined to supervise anything at all; after a term and a half had passed without any contact between them, Kingsley decided to go in search of him at New College. This caused much amusement at the porters' lodge, as if he had asked for the Shah of Persia: 'Oh no, sir. Lord David? Oh, you'd have to get up very early in the morning to get hold of him. Oh dear, oh dear. Lord David in college, well I never did.'
In 1932 Cecil married Rachel MacCarthy, daughter of the literary journalist Sir Desmond MacCarthy. They had three children - actor Jonathan Hugh, who was married to actress Anna Sharkey; a second son, actor and journalist Hugh Peniston ; and Alice Laura . Rachel Cecil died in 1982.
