Kenneth Wheare

{{Short description|Historian and academic administrator}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2021}} {{Use Australian English|date=August 2011}} {{Infobox academic | honorific_prefix =  | name = Sir Kenneth Wheare | honorific_suffix = {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CMG|FBA}} | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | birth_name =  | birth_date = 26 March 1907 | birth_place = | death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|7 September 1979|26 March 1907}} | death_place = | death_cause = | citizenship =  | other_names = | occupation = | period = | known_for = | title = | boards =  | spouse = | partner = | children = | parents = | relatives = | awards =  | website = | education = | alma_mater =  | thesis_title = | thesis_url = | thesis_year = | school_tradition = | doctoral_advisor = | academic_advisors = | influences =  | era = | discipline = Political science | sub_discipline = {{hlist|Government|constitutions|British Commonwealth}} | workplaces = {{plain list| * Christ Church, Oxford * University College, Oxford * All Souls College, Oxford * Exeter College, Oxford }} | doctoral_students =  | notable_students = | main_interests = | notable_works = | notable_ideas = | influenced =  | signature = | signature_alt = | signature_size = | footnotes = }} '''Sir Kenneth Clinton Wheare''', {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|sep=,|CMG|FBA}} (26 March 1907 – 7 September 1979)<ref name="ADB">{{cite Australian Dictionary of Biography |id2=wheare-sir-kenneth-clinton-12005 | title=Wheare, Sir Kenneth Clinton (1907–1979) | access-date=14 July 2011 | last=Poynter | first=J. R. }}</ref> was an Australian academic, who spent most of his career at Oxford University in England.<ref>{{cite ODNB| title=Wheare, Sir Kenneth Clinton (1907–1979) (subscription required) | first=Max | last=Beloff | doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/31822 |year=2004 |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-31822|access-date=9 January 2020}}</ref> He was an expert on the constitutions of the British Commonwealth.<ref>{{cite book |last=Markwell |first=Donald |author-link=Donald Markwell | title=Constitutional Conventions and the Headship of State: Australian Experience |publisher=Connor Court | year=2016 | isbn=978-1925501155 }} Appendix 3: Two Constitutional Scholars: Sir Kenneth Wheare and Dr Eugene Forsey.</ref> He advised constitutional assemblies in former British colonies.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Getachew|first=Adom|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv3znwvg|title=Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination|date=2019|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-17915-5|pages=122|doi=10.2307/j.ctv3znwvg |jstor=j.ctv3znwvg }}</ref>

==Early life and family== Wheare was educated at Scotch College, Melbourne<ref name="ADB" /> and was later a student at Ormond College, Melbourne University and Oriel College, Oxford, gaining a first class degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and also undertaking postgraduate study. He met his wife Joan (1915–2013) when he was her tutor.<ref>{{cite news|title=Joan Wheare: Rebel with many causes|url=http://www.fordmail.co.uk/news/community/obituaries/obits/10789899.Rebel_with_many_causes_who__was_Oxford___s____urban_guerilla___/|access-date=22 March 2015 | newspaper=Oxford Mail | date=7 November 2013 }}</ref> One of their sons is Tom Wheare. Another son is Henry Wheare, the champion British rower who later became a leading intellectual property lawyer in Hong Kong.

==Career== In 1934, Wheare was made a university lecturer in colonial history at the University of Oxford, and joined Christ Church, Oxford with a research lectureship. During his four years at Christ Church, he concentrated his research on the effects of the Statute of Westminster 1931 and the first edition of his ''The Statute of Westminster and Dominion Status'' was published in 1938. In 1939, he was elected fellow of University College, Oxford to fill the post of tutor in politics that had been vacated by John Maud.<ref name="PBA">{{cite journal |last1=Marshall |first1=Geoffrey |author1-link=Geoffrey Marshall (constitutionalist) |title=Kenneth Clinton Wheare, 1907-1979 |journal=Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy |date=1982 |issue=67 |pages=490–507 |url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/1205/67p491.pdf |access-date=26 May 2024 |publisher=The British Academy}}</ref>

In 1944, Wheare was elected the first Gladstone Professor of Government at All Souls College, Oxford.<ref name="PBA" /> He was Chairman of the Departmental Committee on Children and the Cinema from 1947 to 1950 and chaired a committee to examine film censorship in the United Kingdom.<ref name="ADB" /><ref name=screen>{{cite web|website=Screenonline|url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/592670/index.html|title=Wheare Report, The (1950)|access-date=12 November 2022}}</ref> The Wheare committee's findings published in 1950 led to the introduction of a compulsory certificate, X (Explicit Content), allowing only those aged 16 and older to enter.<ref name=screen/> Another outcome of the Wheare report was the creation of the Children's Film Foundation.<ref name=guardian>{{cite news|url=http://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/sep/09/childrens-film-foundation|title=How the Children's Film Foundation once dominated Saturday morning cinema|first=Andrew|last=Roberts|date=September 9, 2010|newspaper=The Guardian}}</ref>

In 1956, he became Rector of Exeter College, Oxford. A gargoyle of his likeness is carved on the Bodleian Library, visible from the Exeter College Fellows' Garden.<ref name="ADB" />

Wheare was Chairman of the Rhodes Trust (1962–69), President of the British Academy (1967–71), Chancellor of the University of Liverpool from 1972. He was also a Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1964 to 1966.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/vc/position/previousvice-chancellors/ | title=Previous Vice-Chancellors | publisher=University of Oxford | location=UK | access-date=14 July 2011 }}</ref>

In 1948 he had contributed ''Abraham Lincoln and the United States'' to the "Teach Yourself History" series.

In June 1973, Wheare was shortlisted for appointment as Governor-General of Australia,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kelly |first=Paul |title=The Dismissal: A Groundbreaking New History |publisher=Penguin Random House Australia |year=2015 |isbn=9781760142032 |location=Melbourne |pages=69 |language=English}}</ref> but was overlooked by then-prime minister Gough Whitlam in favour of Sir John Kerr.

==Honours== Kenneth Wheare was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1953 and was knighted in 1966.{{citation needed|date=January 2021}}<ref name="ADB"/> In 1952, he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences.<ref name="PBA" /> He gave the British Academy's 1974 Master-Mind Lecture.<ref>{{cite web|title=Master-Mind Lectures|website=The British Academy|url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/lectures/listings/master-mind-lectures/}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=Wheare, K. C.|title=Walter Bagehot|journal=Proceedings of the British Academy|year=1975|volume=60|pages=173–197|url=http://publications.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/pubs/proc/files/60p173.pdf}}{{Dead link|date=December 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot }}</ref>

In 2017, Oxford Brookes University named a newly rebuilt lecture hall after Wheare.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.brookes.ac.uk/about-brookes/news/new-hall-named-in-honour-of-sir-kenneth-wheare/ | title=New hall named in honour of Sir Kenneth Wheare | publisher=Oxford Brookes University | location=UK | date=23 June 2017 | access-date=9 January 2019 | archive-date=10 July 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190710123330/https://www.brookes.ac.uk/about-brookes/news/new-hall-named-in-honour-of-sir-kenneth-wheare/ | url-status=dead }}</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

{{s-start}} {{s-aca}} {{succession box | title=Rector of Exeter College, Oxford | years=1956–1972 | before=Eric Arthur Barber | after=Greig Barr }} {{succession box | title=Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University | years=1964–1966 | before=Walter Fraser Oakeshott | after=Kenneth Turpin }} {{s-end}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wheare, Kenneth Clinton}} Category:1907 births Category:1979 deaths Category:People educated at Scotch College, Melbourne Category:Alumni of Oriel College, Oxford Category:Australian Rhodes Scholars Category:20th-century Australian historians Category:Rectors of Exeter College, Oxford Category:Vice-chancellors of the University of Oxford Category:People associated with the University of Liverpool Category:Knights Bachelor Category:Fellows of the British Academy Category:Presidents of the British Academy Category:Gladstone Professors of Government Category:Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford Category:Australian political scientists Category:Scholars of constitutional law Category:20th-century political scientists Category:Fellows of Nuffield College, Oxford Category:Fellows of University College, Oxford