Robert George Dalrymple Laffan
1 portrait of Robert George Dalrymple Laffan
© Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge
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Robert George Dalrymple Laffan
by Antony Barrington Brown
2 1/4 inch square film negative, 3 June 1958
Given by Antony Barrington Brown, 2010
Photographs Collection
NPG x104744
Sitterback to top
- Robert George Dalrymple Laffan (1887-1972), Lecturer in History, University of Cambridge and Life Fellow of Queens' College. Sitter in 1 portrait.
Artistback to top
- Antony Barrington Brown (1927-2012), Photographer. Artist or producer associated with 228 portraits.
Events of 1958back to top
Current affairs
Britain's first motorway is built. The Preston bypass (M6) was the first road to be built to official motorway standards, although the M1 (opened in 1959) was the first road to be given official status. The road was opened by the Prime minister, Harold Macmillan, and heralded a new age of mass, high-speed motoring.Art and science
Michael Bond publishes A Bear Called Paddington, the first Paddington Bear book. This popular character is remembered for being found at Paddington Station by the Brown family, for wearing a floppy hat, duffle coat and Wellington boots, and for his penchant for marmalade sandwiches.The children's television programme, Blue Peter, is broadcast for the first time.
International
Following the USSR's successful launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite in 1957, America launches its own space agency, NASA. Under pressure from the Soviets' early lead, NASA began research into human spaceflight. The competition between the two superpowers to explore outer space, send humans beyond the Earth's orbit and land on the moon was known as the 'space race'.Comments back to top
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Revd. Christian Merivale
21 April 2018, 13:37
R.G.D. Laffan was educated at Eton. He took Holy Orders in the Church of England and served as a chaplain in WW1. His book, The Serbs - The Guardians of the Gate, was a compilation of lectures and was published in 1918. In later life Laffan resigned his orders as he had a crisis of conscience over the matter of Apostolic Succession and converted to Roman Catholicism. I knew him very well from 1958 until he died as I lived with him and his wife, Mabel, while I attended the Oratory School. We had a family connection as his wife, Mabel, was a cousin of my grandfather. During those years Laffan took not infrequent trips to the Balkan countries. He would disappear on such trips with very little notice saying to me, "The Foreign Office has asked me to go to Eastern Europe as there is a spot of bother in the Balkans". He would return and say nothing of his trip and the only evidence of his travels were several boxes of fragrant smelling cigarettes.