George Macaulay Trevelyan, OM CBE FRS FBA

George Macaulay Trevelyan, OM CBE FRS FBA was a British historian and academic. He was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge from 1898 to 1903. He then spent more than twenty years as a full-time author. He returned to the University of Cambridge and was Regius Professor of History from 1927 to 1943. He served as Master of Trinity College from 1940 to 1951. In retirement, he was Chancellor of Durham University.

VADs

Born in 1876, Trevelyan was a renowned British historian and prolific author. He was considered to be one of the last Whig historians.

Trevelyan’s defective eyesight meant that he was unfit for military service during the First World War. Instead, he commanded the first British Red Cross Ambulance Unit in Italy.

The job of the ambulance unit was to ferry the wounded back from the front line of Mount Sabotino to Villa Trento, the unit’s own hospital ten miles from Gorizia.

The roads were poor and it was safest to travel in pitch darkness, without lights, often under heavy fire. He died in July 1962, aged 86.