Cyril Connolly - Oxford

Oxford

Connolly undertook a tour of Germany, Austria and Hungary before starting at Oxford University. After his cloistered existence as a King's Scholar at Eton, Connolly felt uncomfortable with the hearty beer-drinking rugby and rowing types at Oxford. His own circle included his Eton friends Mynors and Dannruthers, who were at Balliol with him, and Kenneth Clark, whom he met through Bobbie Longden at Kings. He wrote: "The only exercise we took was running up bills." His intellectual mentors were the Dean of Balliol, "Sligger" Urquhart, who organised reading parties on the continent, and the Dean of Wadham, Maurice Bowra. Connolly's academic career languished while his Oxford years were characterised by his travel adventures. In January 1923 he went with Urquhart and other collegers to Italy. In March he undertook his annual visit to Spain and in September went on the annual trip with the college group to Urquhart's chalet in French Alps. On his return he visited his father now in hotel in South Kensington close to the Natural History Museum. At the end of the year he went to Italy and Tunis. At Oxford in 1924 he made a new friend Patrick Balfour, in the spring he went to Spain and in the summer of 1924 went successively to Greece and Crete, Urquhart's chalet in the Alps and Naples. Christmas he spent with his parents in a rare get-together at the Lock House in Hampshire and at the beginning of 1925 went with the college group to Minehead with Urquhart. In his last year at Oxford he was cultivating friendships with younger students Anthony Powell, Henry Yorke and Peter Quennell. In spring he was back in Spain before returning to Oxford to take his final exams.