Item 158 - Letter from George Macaulay Trevelyan to R. C. Trevelyan

1 item

Garden Corner, West Road, Cambridge. - Marked 'Private'. Wants to tell Bob and Bessie before they see it in the press that he is to be Master of Trinity: the Prime Minister's letter came today and he will reply with his acceptance on Sunday. The Fellows are anxious for him to accept, particularly as it is not clear 'whom Winston would appoint' if George refused and there are some plausible candidates they do not want. 'Everybody concerned has been so kind' that George 'cannot leave them in the lurch'; Janet insists he must accept, though he knows she 'will be the loser'. He 'did not want to be Master', and doubts he would ever have accepted if peace had continued, but he feels that he has 'no other war work... of any real importance', and Hallington has been taken over by the R.A.F.; feels he must try. Finds it a 'tragi-comic irony' that the 'crash of civilization' has put him in the Lodge of 'Montagu Butler and Whewell and Bentley''; though they will not move in until January 'and meanwhile it may be destroyed by a bomb!'.