Paul Vaucher

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Paul Vaucher (born August 26, 1887 in Gilly , Switzerland; † October 11, 1966 ) was a historian, university professor and author.

Life

The father Édouard Vaucher taught as a Lutheran theologian at the Protestant faculty of the University of Paris. His son studied with the historians Émile Bourgeois and Georges Pagès at the Sorbonne and the private École libre des sciences politiques . In 1906 he passed his exams in philosophy and in 1912 in history and geography. In 1913 he presented his dissertation project on the relationship between England and France in the school yearbook for higher studies. In the London Public Record Office he read the correspondence of the English ambassador in Paris from the 18th century. In the British Museum he studied the State Secretary's diplomatic correspondence in the Foreign Office and learned about the influence of the large long-distance trading companies.

In 1919 he taught French at Lund University in Sweden. His mentor and friend, the philosopher and historian Élie Halévy recommended him on March 23, 1920 for a position at the University of London. From 1922 he taught modern French history there. In 1924 he submitted his dissertation on "The Crisis of the Walpole Ministry" at the University of Paris. After 1930 he spent the winter months in France. In 1933 he taught as a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science .

During the first years of the war he served as a censor at the Havas news agency . He taught at the New School for Social Research in New York and returned to London in 1941 to serve as cultural attaché at the embassy of the French government-in-exile.

The education ministers of the Allied countries founded a commission for the protection and return of cultural property in London, which was named after its chairman "Vaucher Committee". The first meeting took place on April 25, 1944. Belgium, China, France, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, the USA, the British Ministry of Education and the British Council were represented . The Commission's secretariat at 23 Belgrave Square acted as an information center on looted art until it was dissolved in November 1945 . The data collected on systematic expropriation, organized looting, stolen goods, agents and smugglers were recorded on index cards in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and distributed to the Allies through microfilms. The Vaucher Commission was a model for American efforts to protect art and historical monuments in the theaters of war.

An exchange of letters with the art historian Kenneth Clark from February 1945 has been preserved in the archives of the Tate Gallery.

In November 1945 Vaucher was appointed to a chair in history at the Sorbonne. His lecture on the British Empire and its expansion into Africa and Asia from the 19th century to 1939 appeared in print in 1948. In 1954 he contributed to a three-volume work on “European heritage”. In 1956 he retired.

literature

  • Biography at the University of Montreal, Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle
  • Obituary by John C. Rule, French Historical Studies, Duke University Press, Vol. 5, No. 1, Worcester 1967 ( online ).

Works

  • La Crise du ministère Walpole, en 1733–1734. Plon-Nourrit, Paris 1924.
  • Robert Walpole et la politique de Fleury, 1731–1742. Plon-Nourrit, Paris 1924.
  • Le Monde anglo-saxon du XIXe siècle. E. de Boccard, Paris 1926 ( Histoire du monde 12.1).
  • Post-War France. Butterworth, London 1934.
  • L'Évolution économique de la Grande-Bretagne au XX. siècle et l'effort de guerre britannique. les Cours de lettres, Paris 1948.
  • Étude sur la France de 1598 à 1660. Center de documentation universitaire, Paris 1949.
  • Le Despotisme éclairé 1740–1789. Center de documentation universitaire, Paris 1949.
  • L'Évolution sociale et religieuse de l'Angleterre au XIX. siécle. Center de documentation universitaire, Paris 1953.
  • Associate Editor (with Ernest Barker and George Clark): The European Inheritance. Clarendon press, Oxford 1954.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ École pratique des hautes études, Section des sciences historiques et philologiques. Annuaire 1913-1914, Paris 1914, pp. 106-108.
  2. ^ British Library of Political and Economic Science
  3. ↑ Yearbook of the Universities of the Empire, London 1933, p. 149.
  4. ↑ Craig Hugh Smyth, Repatriation of Art from the Collecting Point in Munich after World War II, Groningen 1988, p. 56.
  5. ^ Protocol in the Washington National Archives, Records of the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas, 1943–1946, Minutes, Vaucher Commission.
  6. ^ University of Montreal, Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle
  7. ^ The National Archives, Commission for Looted Art in Europe
  8. ^ Report of the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas. Washington 1946 (PDF) ( Memento of October 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive ).
  9. ^ Tate Gallery Archive
personal data
SURNAME Vaucher, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Historian, university professor and author
DATE OF BIRTH August 26, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Gilly , Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH October 11, 1966