Oswald Barron

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

He was born at West Ham, Essex, and educated at Merchant Taylors School, London. Most of his career was spent on the staff of the London Evening News, where he had a daily column which he signed as "The Londoner". He was a friend of Edith Nesbit and co-wrote The Butler in Bohemia with her. He also suggested the plot of The Railway Children, and her book The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899) is dedicated to him, 'in memory of childhoods identical but for the accidents of time and space'.^[1]

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 with its twelfth issue.

From this venture, he moved to the Victoria County History, where he contributed on matters on heraldry and genealogy. He also contributed a major article on heraldry to the 1911 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which is said in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography to remain "one of the best and most erudite introductions to the subject."

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, Arthur Charles 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.

He married Hilda Leonora Florence Sanders in 1899 and had one daughter.

He was elected as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1901, was appointed gold staff officer at the coronation of George V in 1911, served as Lieutenant in the Inns of Court reserve regiment 1916-1919, and attended at the coronation of George VI in 1937 by virtue of his appointment as Maltravers Herald Extraordinary.

References

1. ^ E. Nesbit, The Story of the Treasure Seekers (Harmondsworth 1958), 5.

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Persondata
Name	Barron, Oswald
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	3 January 1868
Place of birth
Date of death	24 September 1939
Place of death