The History Boys Context

The History Boys by Alan Bennett
Bennett’s background
Context: Alan Bennett and The History Boys
Alan Bennett (1934 – )

Alan Bennett was born in Leeds and attended Leeds Modern School, a grammar school for
boys. His father was a butcher. After his national service Bennett gained a place at
Cambridge University, but decided to apply for a scholarship to Oxford in order to follow a
boy he had fallen in love with.
In his introduction to The History Boys he says:
‘There was no practical advantage in getting a scholarship. It carried more

prestige certainly, but no more money … but that apart I wanted a scholarship
out of sheer vanity.
Or not quite. I had fallen for one of my colleagues with a passion as hopeless
and unrequited as Posner’s is for Dakin … with some silly notion … he would
think more of me. Such illusions and disillusions … were … as significant as any
examinations …’
Bennett gained a first class degree in history and for several years remained at the
university, teaching and researching medieval history, but he was not cut out to be an
academic. During his time at university he acted in the Oxford Review and in 1960, with
several fellow graduates, he appeared in the Edinburgh Festival with a successful show:
Beyond the Fringe. This led on to television work and ultimately to writing plays. He is
now one of the most well-known writers in the United Kingdom, achieving status as a
‘national institution’ for his work.
To date Bennett has been an actor, director, broadcaster, and he has written for stage,
television, radio and film. In spite of receiving several academic honours in the 1990s,
Bennett refused an honorary doctorate from Oxford University, in protest at its accepting
funding for a named chair in honour of Rupert Murdoch, a press mogul Bennett
disapproves of. He also turned down a CBE in 1988 and a knighthood in 1996.
In 2008, he donated his entire collection of manuscripts, notes, drafts and scripts from his
50-year literary career to the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. In an interview,
Bennett explained that he saw it as the repayment of a debt for the free education he was
given:
‘Giving the manuscripts to Bodley – it sounds rather pious – is a kind of small

recompense for what I was given. And not merely by Oxford, I also feel I was
given it by the state.’
(Guardian, 24th Oct 2008)
His work is particularly well known for its focus on the everyday and the ordinary; on
people with typically British characteristics and obsessions.
© www.teachit.co.uk 2010 14130 Page 1 of 4

The History Boys (2004)

The History Boys is said to be an expression, in part, of Bennett’s belief in the value of
literature as a good thing for its own sake.
The play is about a group of boys from a northern grammar school attempting the Oxford
entrance exam during the 1980s. It combines criticism of modern media historians with
criticism of modern educational practices and makes a strong statement of a fundamental
if unfashionable belief in the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.
In the play, school can be seen as a metaphor for the cultural life of the nation. In this
metaphor, the differing approaches to teaching are shown through Hector and Irwin, and
this highlights the parallel changes in British cultural and social life in recent decades.
Bibliography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Bennett
http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors

Context: Universities and class in the play
As the son of a Co-op butcher, Bennett would have been very aware of his social class and
his education as he was growing up in the 1950s. He felt privileged, as a free place at a
grammar school was a way into higher education for working-class children, giving them
opportunities to go to university. By 1980, there were very few grammar schools left and
every child had access to higher education as a right.
Read the following two extracts and work at the tasks below. One is in Bennett’s own
words and the other is from a film critic.
The History Boys … has nothing to do with my contemporaries … but it does

draw on some of the pains and the excitement of working for a scholarship at a
time when Oxford and Cambridge were as daunting and mysterious to me as to
any of the boys in the play.
(Alan Bennett, Introduction: The History Boys, Faber and Faber 2004)
The History Boys is … permeated with odious class prejudice …

He [the Headmaster] ‘tried’ for Oxford. But he has a geography degree from –
wait for it – Hull. At this revelation, the audience exploded with mirth. Why?
What's funny about that? Those who care to check will see the department
which the headteacher attended was rated top in the official 2005 student
satisfaction survey and, as its website proudly proclaims: ‘We are now ranked
amongst the top 20 geography departments in the recent Guardian national
league tables.’ Not Oxford, certainly, but neither the academic pits.
Is a geography degree from Hull an intellectually shameful thing? Should those
who have earned one, and reached a top post in a grammar school, wear a
scarlet ‘H’ on their breasts, carry wooden clappers, and shout ‘Uneducated!
Uneducated!’? … The [film] is punctuated with sarcasms against municipal,
provincial, and redbrick institutions. Loughborough … gets its sneer, as does
Leeds … Manchester and Nottingham … even Durham.
(Education Guardian, 19th October 2006)

The Guardian reviewer argues that Bennett is a snob about universities. How right do you
believe he is about Bennett’s view? Read Mrs Lintott and Hector’s (pp.8-9) description of
university. Using the PEE structure, write about their feelings about not having gone to
Oxbridge.
The Headmaster is a snob about universities, and Irwin feels the need to lie about having
been to Oxford. How fair today is that snobbery? Do you personally feel there is still a
great deal of status involved in attending Oxbridge? In reality, how ‘poor’ are the rest of
the universities in comparison?
Using the internet for research, compile a league table of your own of all the universities
mentioned here, using several criteria:
 for history
 for the top subject at the university
 overall
 for student satisfaction
 for any other criteria you find.
Discuss which university you would find attractive or worthwhile enough to attend, and
why.

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What is the context provided about Alan Bennett and his background?

What criticisms does the play make about modern educational practices?

The History Boys by Alan Bennett

Context: Alan Bennett and The History Boys

Alan Bennett (1934 – )

‘There was no practical advantage in getting a scholarship. It carried more

‘Giving the manuscripts to Bodley – it sounds rather pious – is a kind of small

© www.teachit.co.uk 2010 14130 Page 1 of 4

The History Boys (2004)

© www.teachit.co.uk 2010 14130 Page 2 of 4

Context: Universities and class in the play

The History Boys … has nothing to do with my contemporaries … but it does

The History Boys is … permeated with odious class prejudice …

© www.teachit.co.uk 2010 14130 Page 3 of 4

© www.teachit.co.uk 2010 14130 Page 4 of 4

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