Queer Places:
Winchester College, College St, Winchester SO23 9NA, UK
University of Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire OX1 3PA
Beechwood House, Iffley Turn, Iffley, Oxford OX4 4HW, UK
St Mary the Virgin New Churchyard
Iffley, City of Oxford, Oxfordshire, England
John Hanbury Angus Sparrow OBE (13 November 1906 – 24 January 1992) was an English academic, barrister, book-collector, and Warden of All Souls College, Oxford, from 1952 to 1977.
One of the earliest enthusiasts in Britain for the idea of the George
Kreis was the Oxford don Maurice
Bowra, who may have been introduced to George’s work by
Edward Sackville-West. He told John Sparrow – also a don, also gay –
‘I thought I would write to Kreis and say that there is a circle of young
men chosen for their looks who study his works in Oxford.’
John Hanbury Angus Sparrow was born on 13 November 1906 at New Oxley, Bushbury, near Wolverhampton. His father was Isaac Saredon Sparrow, a barrister who had inherited wealth through the family business as prominent Midland ironmasters. John Sparrow was the eldest of five children, born to Isaac
Sparrow and Margaret Macgregor.
Sparrow briefly attended the junior house of Wolverhampton Grammar School, but was soon moved to Brockhurst at Church Stretton in Shropshire as a boarder. Not long after, in September 1916, when he was nearly ten, he was sent to a preparatory school called The Old Hall at Wellington in Shropshire. His formal education followed at Winchester College and New College, Oxford.
Sparrow was elected Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, in 1929, winning a prize fellowship the same year H. L. A. Hart sat (unsuccessfully) for the first time. He became Warden of All Souls (1952–77) in an election in which he famously defeated
A. L. Rowse. He was also a Fellow of Winchester (1951–81) and an Honorary Fellow of New College (1956–1992). In Oxford he was well known as a book-collector and bibliographer, and became President of the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles, in which role he influenced a generation of Oxford bookmen. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).
He famously wrote an article for Encounter on Lady Chatterley's Lover by
D.H. Lawrence (after the obscenity trial) arguing that the acquittal was wrong, as the novel promoted the illegal practice of sodomy.
Sparrow was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple (1931, Honorary Bencher 1952), practising in the Chancery Division (1931–39, 1946–51).
He died on 24 January 1992 at Iffley, near Oxford.
My published books:/p>
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