IN MEDIEVAL HISTORY 9 



that this organisation needed to be supplemented in 

 the interests of a large body of post-graduate students 

 resident in London, where the national archives and 

 museums afford an unequalled opportunity for the 

 pursuit of historical research. 



In 1897 a paper was read before the Royal Historical 

 Society by the late Professor York Powell, in which 

 he strongly advocated the establishment of an Ecole 

 des Chartes in London, as a State institution ; but his 

 appeal met with no response. A few years later, 

 however, in 1900, the present Master of Peterhouse, 

 Dr. A. W. Ward, then President of the Royal Historical 

 Society, propounded a scheme of Advanced Historical 

 Study in the course of a Presidential Address. This 

 scheme was subsequently circulated, discussed and 

 formulated by a Committee, under the chairmanship 

 in turn of Mr. James Bryce and Dr. G. W. Prothero, 

 representing the views of nearly 200 representative 

 historical scholars who formed the first body of donors 

 and subscribers to the Advanced Historical Teaching 

 Fund, to which the Mansion House Committee of the 

 Creighton Memorial Fund generously transferred a 

 large portion of its public subscriptions. 



Sufficient support having been promised to enable 

 the Committee to establish two lectureships, it was 

 resolved to take advantage of the existing technical 

 instruction given at the London School of Economics 

 (University of London) in order to provide further 

 advanced teaching of a purely historical character at 

 the most convenient centre for research work in the 

 Archives. 



In pursuance of this decision of the Committee of 

 the Advanced Historical Teaching Fund, Mr. Hubert 

 Hall, then Lecturer and now Reader in Palaeography 

 and early Economic Sources in the University of 

 London, and Mr. I. S. Leadam, formerly Fellow and 

 tutor of Brasenose College, Oxford, were appointed 

 To deliver courses of lectures and to conduct 



