Brailsford, Henry Noel

Henry Noel Brailsford (1873-1958) was the son of a Methodist minister. Although born in Yorkshire, he was raised and educated in Scotland, where his father had congregations in Edinburgh and Glasgow. At Glasgow University, he studied classics and philosophy under the distinguished scholar Gilbert Murray, who was to remain a friend and mentor throughout his life. Abandoning an early academic career, he started his long life as a writer and journalist. However, like Ernest Hemingway, he wished to experience history at first hand and joined Philhellennic Legion in their struggle against the Turks and saw combat in the disastrous Thessaly campaign of 1897, where he was wounded.

This interest in Greece and the Balkans was to remain with him for the rest of his life. He was to report for the Manchester Guardian on the military situations in Macedonia and Crete in 1899 and at the front in the Balkan war of 1912. He was a prominent member of the Balkan Committee and led a relief mission to Macedonia in 1903. In 1913 he was appointed to the Carnegie Commission of Enquiry on the origin of the Balkan Wars. At the end of his life he took an active interest in Tito's Yugoslavia.

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