W. M. Childs

William Macbride Childs was born in 1869 at Carrington near Boston in Lincolnshire, the only son of the second marriage of Rev W.L. Childs to Henrietta Fowles Bell, although he had 2 half-sisters and a half-brother from his father's first marriage. William was educated at home until he was 10 when, his father having moved to a living in Portsea, he went first to Portsmouth Grammar School and then won a scholarship in modern history to Keble College Oxford. While at Oxford he worked hard, became president of his college debating society and was expected by his family, friends and tutors to gain a first class degree and go on to a Fellowship. However in 1891, after a long viva, Childs was awarded only a second class.

This disappointment meant that he could not continue at Oxford, although he had enrolled as a University Extension lecturer and spoke at centres throughout the country. He spent some time as a private tutor and, thinking that he might pursue a political career, worked as an assistant private secretary to Dyke Acland, but decided that he was better suited to academia. For a term he acted as temporary Professor of History at the University College of Wales in Aberystwyth, and then, in 1893, he was appointed as a history lecturer at the newly formed Reading University Extension College, founded as an experiment by Christ Church Oxford.

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