Oswald Barron

(Arthur) Oswald Barron (3 January 1868 – 24 September 1939) was a journalist and scholar on heraldic and genealogical subjects.

Early life

Born at West Ham in Essex, he was one of five children of Henry Stracey Barron (1838–1918), a consulting mechanical engineer, one-time chief engineer of the Imperial Ottoman Arsenal, and his wife Harriet (née Marshall). The Barron family later lived at Lewisham.^[1]

Barron was educated at Merchant Taylors' School in London, as his father had been.^[2][3]

Career

Most of his career was spent on the staff of the London

He founded and edited a profusely-illustrated quarterly scholarly periodical on genealogical subjects, called The Ancestor (1902–1905), which attempted to debunk many popular myths of the Victorian era and to replace them with properly referenced facts, concentrating especially on the medieval period. The Ancestor discontinued publication after its twelfth volume.^[citation needed]

From this venture, he moved to the

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography remains "one of the best and most erudite introductions to the subject".^[2]

His interest in medieval rather than contemporary heraldry, and his opinion (based on medieval practice) that assumption of arms was not prohibited by the Law of Arms, pitted him against the more prolific and popular heraldic author,

A. C. Fox-Davies. It did not, however, deprive him of friends in the College of Arms, and he was, towards the end of his life in 1937, appointed Maltravers Herald Extraordinary at the College. However, the demands of his daily column for the Evening News, on which he depended for his living, kept him away from any sustained work of scholastic endeavour, despite the high quality of his periodical contributions.^{[citation needed}

]

He was elected as a Fellow of the

coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1937 by virtue of his appointment as Maltravers Herald.^{[citation needed}

]

Personal life

Barron married Hilda Leonora Florence Sanders in 1899, by whom he had one daughter.

References

1. ^ Merchant Taylors' School Register, 1561-1934, Volume 1, Merchant Taylors' Company, 1936, p. 5
2. ^
   ISBN 9780198614128. Retrieved 17 October 2020. (Subscription or UK public library membership
   required.)
3. ^ Merchant Taylors' School Register, 1561-1934, Volume 1, Merchant Taylors' Company, 1936, p. 6
4. ^ E. Nesbit, The Story of the Treasure Seekers (Harmondsworth 1958), 5.

• Campbell-Kease, John (2004). "Barron, (Arthur) Oswald (1868–1939)".
  doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/37158. (Subscription or UK public library membership
  required.)
• Gordon, Peter (2004). "Oswald Barron: editor of the Victoria County History Northamptonshire families". Northamptonshire Past and Present. 57: 69–72.

External links

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Oswald Barron

• Oswald Barron at Library of Congress, with 8 library catalogue records