Master Taylor of Kirkland House To Retire From Post This Spring

Charles H. Taylor will retire this June as Master of Kirkland House and Henry Charles Lea Professor of Medieval History.

Although Taylor's successor as Master has already been chosen, his name will not be released until next month when the Board of Overseers gives its formal approval.

Since Taylor became Master in 1955, Kirkland has developed a reputation as a House where the loyalty of staff members and their accessibility to undergraduates is particularly high. In the opinion of many, however, Taylor's greatest contribution has been his concern for students and his willingness to sacrifice his personal interests to theirs.

To 11 classes, he has been a familiar figure at inter-House athletic events (Kirkland has won the Straus Trophy seven times since 1955), at the House pool tables (he is noted for his skill at billiards), and in his garden.

Taylor entered the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1921 after graduating first in his class from Washington and Lee University. Between 1923 and 1925, he studied at the Universities of Ghent and Paris on a fellowship, and on his return to Cambridge he became a lecturer at Radcliffe, giving the first half of History 1.

Began Hist. 122 in 1927

He began giving his course in French medieval history (now known as History 122) in 1927, and launched a course on medieval intellectual history (History 121) three years later. Taylor also earned his doctorate, was named assistant professor, and became a tutor in 1927. He was appointed associate professor in 1934 and full professor in 1942.

A charter member of the Lowell House staff, he went to Adams when that House opened and was associated with Adams until 1955. He got a taste of what a Master's job was like in 1933, when he served as acting Master while the Master took a semester's leave.

For two years before the beginning of World War II, Taylor actively supported an interventionist group, and in 1942 he rejoined the Army as a captain in military intelligence. (World War I had ended before he could leave training camp.)

Back at Harvard, Taylor found it "hard to pick up the pieces" of unfinished academic research, but he derived much satisfaction from helping to remodel History I into the Gen Ed program's Soc Sci 1.

Taylor and his wife, the former Fidelia Leverett Moore plan to move to their summer home in Jaffrey, N.H. He says he will "grow flowers and chase birds" and finish some long-postponed research on the French Assembly of 1321.

His ten years as Master, he says, "have involved a great deal of work, all of it worthwhile, and a lot of pleasure."