Allen Leeper’s Letters Home, 1908–1912. An Irish-Australian at Edwardian Oxford, edited by David Hayton (CUP, 2024).

Allen Leeper, Oxford undergraduate, friend of Lewis Namier and future Foreign Office mandarin, wrote regularly to his family in Australia from 1908 until he left university in 1912.

From an Ulster Unionist family background, the politics of the times led him to change his views on Irish Home Rule. His letters, in Balliol archives and the State Library of Victoria, record his experiences at Balliol College, among a ‘golden generation’ decimated by the First World War, and on his extensive travels in Europe.

This event will be hybrid - in-person and online via Teams.

The booklaunch will be followed by a drinks reception.