View source for C. P. Snow

{{Short description|English novelist and physical chemist (1905–1980)}}
{{Use British English|date=September 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2024}}
{{Infobox scientist
|honorific_prefix  = [[The Right Honourable]]
|name              = The Lord Snow
|honorific_suffix  = {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100|CBE|FRSL}}
|image             = C. P. Snow.jpg
|image_size        =
|caption           = C. P. Snow in 1969 by Jack Manning for ''The New York Times''
|birth_date        = {{Birth date|1905|10|15|df=yes}}
|birth_place       = [[Leicester]], England
|birth_name        = Charles Percy Snow
|death_date        = {{death date and age|1980|7|1|1905|10|15|df=yes}}
|death_place       = London, England
|spouses           = {{marriage|[[Pamela Hansford Johnson]]|1950}}
|children          = 1
|citizenship       =
|nationality       = English
|field             = Physics, chemistry, literature (novelist)
|work_institutions = {{Plain list|
* [[University of Cambridge]]
* [[English Electric]]
* [[Civil Service (United Kingdom)|Civil Service]]
}}
|education         = [[Alderman Newton's School]]
|alma_mater        = {{Plain list|
* [[University of Leicester|University College, Leicester]]
* [[University of Cambridge]] (PhD)
}}
|doctoral_advisor  =
|doctoral_students = [[Eric Eastwood (engineer)|Eric Eastwood]]
|thesis_title      = The Structure of Simple Molecules
|thesis_url      = https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.31121
| thesis_year      = 1930
|known_for         = {{Plain list|
* ''[[Strangers and Brothers]]''
* ''[[The Two Cultures]]''
* ''[[Corridors of Power (novel)|Corridors of Power]]''
}}
|prizes            =
|signature         =
}}
[[File:LeicesterCPSnowPlaque1a_June2010.jpg|thumb|Lord Snow of Leicester was born at 40 Richmond Road Leicester. This plaque is displayed opposite his birthplace.]]

'''Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow''' (15 October 1905 – 1 July 1980<ref name=whoswho/>) was an English novelist and [[physical chemist]] who also served in several important positions in the [[British Civil Service]] and briefly in the [[Government of the United Kingdom|UK government]].<ref name=imdb>{{IMDb name}}</ref><ref name=Columbia>''The Columbia Encyclopedia'' (6th Edition, 2001–2005).  "[http://www.bartleby.com/65/sn/Snow-CP.html Snow, C. P.]"  Accessed 26 July 2007.</ref> He is best known for his series of novels known collectively as ''[[Strangers and Brothers]]'', and for "[[The Two Cultures]]", a 1959 lecture in which he laments the gulf between scientists and "literary intellectuals".<ref>{{cite journal
|last=Markl
|first=H
|date=April 1994
|title=Dementia dichotoma—the 'two cultures' delusion
|journal=[[Experientia]]
|volume=50
|issue=4
|pages=346–51
| pmid = 8174681
|doi=10.1007/BF02026636
 |s2cid=34079880
}}</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20090510065231/http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/are_we_beyond_the_two_cultures "Are We Beyond the Two Cultures?"], [[Seed (magazine)|''Seed Magazine'']] article, 7 May 2009</ref><ref>[[Lisa Jardine]] (2010) "C.P. Snow's Two Cultures Revisited," ''Christ's College'' magazine, pp. 48-57</ref><ref>Snow, C. P. (1963). ''The Two Cultures: A Second Look''. London: Cambridge University Press.</ref>

==Early life and education==
Born in [[Leicester]] to William Snow, a church organist and choirmaster, and his wife Ada,<ref>{{cite book |title=Stranger and brother: a portrait of C.P. Snow |author=Philip Snow |page=3 |year=1982 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=0-333-32680-6 |author-link=Philip Snow }}</ref> Charles Snow was the second of four boys, his brothers being Harold, Eric and [[Philip Snow]],<ref>{{cite book |title=A time of renewal: clusters of characters, C. P. Snow, and co, ups |author=Philip Snow |page=234 |year=1998 |publisher=Radcliffe Press|author-link=Philip Snow }}</ref> and was educated at [[Alderman Newton's School]].<ref name=whoswho>{{Who's Who | author=Anon| title=Snow, Baron (Charles Percy)| type = was | id = U159735 | year = 2017 | doi =10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U159735 | edition = online [[Oxford University Press]]|location=Oxford}}</ref><ref name=did>{{cite web|first=Roy|last= Plomley|year=1975|title= C. P. Snow's Desert Island Discs|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p009n6dn|publisher=[[BBC]]}}</ref>

In 1923, he passed the intermediate British School Certificate, but remained at Alderman Newton's to work as a laboratory assistant for a further two years.<ref>Snow, ''Stranger and brother'', p. 22.</ref> In 1925 he began a [[University of London]] external degree in science at [[University of Leicester|University College, Leicester]], graduating with a first in chemistry in 1927 and an MSc the following year.<ref>Snow, ''Stranger and brother'', pp. 25, 29.</ref><ref name="CP Snow">{{cite book|last=Tredell|first=N|title=C.P. Snow: The Dynamics of Hope|year=2012|publisher=Springer|isbn=9781137271877}}</ref> Upon leaving Leicester, Snow gained a prestigious Keddey-Fletcher-Warr postgraduate studentship worth £200, allowing him to embark on doctoral research at [[Christ's College, Cambridge]].<ref>Snow, ''Stranger and brother'', p. 30.</ref> He received his [[PhD]] in physics from Cambridge in 1930, with a thesis on the [[spectroscopy|infrared spectra]] of simple [[diatomic molecule]]s.<ref name=PhD>{{cite thesis|degree=PhD|publisher=University of Cambridge|url=https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/283752|doi=10.17863/CAM.31121|title=The structure of simple molecules|first= Charles Percy|last=Snow|date=1930|id={{EThOS|uk.bl.ethos.763531}}|website=cam.ac.uk|oclc=1085143960}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201705/physicshistory.cfm|website=aps.org|title=This Month in Physics History: May 7, 1959: C.P. Snow Gives His "Two Cultures" Lecture|author=Anon|publisher=[[American Physical Society]]|year=2017}}</ref>

==Career and research==
In 1930 he became a [[Fellow]] of Christ's College. After a ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'' paper on a new method of synthesising [[Vitamin A]] turned out to be incorrect, he withdrew from further scientific research.<ref>[[Peter Lachmann]] (2019) 'The Two Cultures at Cambridge', ''European Review'', Volume 27, Issue 1, pp. 46–53
{{doi|10.1017/S1062798718000571}}</ref>

Snow served in several senior civil service positions: as technical director of the [[Ministry of Labour (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Labour]] from 1940 to 1944, and as a civil service commissioner from 1945 to 1960. He was appointed a Commander of the [[Order of the British Empire]] (CBE) in the [[1943 New Year Honours]].<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=35841 |date=1 January 1943 |page=16  |supp=y}}</ref> Snow was among the 2,300 names of prominent persons listed on the [[Nazi]]s' [[The Black Book (list)|Special Search List]], of those who were to be arrested on the invasion of Great Britain and turned over to the [[Gestapo]].<ref>''[[The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich]]'', [[William L. Shirer]], Book Club Associates, 1971, page 784.</ref>

In 1944, he was appointed director of scientific personnel for the [[English Electric Company]]. Later he became physicist-director.<ref name="Enc.com">{{cite web|title=C.P. Snow facts, information, pictures {{!}} Encyclopedia.com articles about C.P. Snow|url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/historians-miscellaneous-biographies/cp-snow|website=encyclopedia.com}}</ref> In this capacity he was to employ his former student [[Eric Eastwood (engineer)|Eric Eastwood]].

In the [[1957 New Year Honours]]<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=40960 |date=1 January 1957 |page=2  |supp=y}}</ref> he was [[Knight Bachelor|knighted]], having the honour conferred by Queen [[Elizabeth II]] on 12 February,<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=41003 | date=15 February 1957 |pages=1044–1045 }}</ref> and was created a [[life peer]], as '''Baron Snow''', of the [[City of Leicester]], on 29 October 1964.<ref name=Columbia/><ref>{{London Gazette |issue=43477 |date=30 October 1964 |page=9195}}</ref> As a politician, Snow was [[parliamentary secretary]] in the [[House of Lords]] to the [[Minister of Technology]] from 1964 to 1966 in the Labour government of [[Harold Wilson]].<ref name=Columbia/>

Snow married the novelist [[Pamela Hansford Johnson]] in 1950; they had one son. Friends included the mathematician [[G. H. Hardy]], for whom he would write a biographical foreword in ''[[A Mathematician's Apology]]'', the physicist [[Patrick Blackett, Baron Blackett|Patrick Blackett]], the X-ray crystallographer [[J. D. Bernal]], the cultural historian [[Jacques Barzun]] and the polymath [[George Steiner]].<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/george-steiner/ |title=Letters to the Editor: George Steiner, Maugham in China, George Sand, etc |magazine=[[The Times Literary Supplement]] |issn=0307-661X |date=27 March 2020 |access-date=29 March 2020}}</ref><ref>C. P. Snow ''Christ's College Magazine'' 231, 67–69, (2006)</ref> At Christ's College he tutored H. S. Hoff – later better known as the novelist [[William Cooper (novelist)|William Cooper]]. The two became friends, worked together in the civil service and wrote versions of each other into their novels: Snow was the model for the college dean, Robert, in Cooper's ''Scenes from Provincial Life'' sequence.<ref>Shrapnel, Norman. Obituary, William Cooper, ''[[The Guardian]]'', London, 7 September 2002.</ref> In 1960, Snow gave the [[Godkin Lectures]] at [[Harvard University]], about the clashes between [[Henry Tizard]] and F. Lindemann (later [[Lord Cherwell]]), both scientific advisors to British governments around the time of the Second World War. The lectures were subsequently published as ''Science and Government.''  For the academic year 1961 to 1962, Snow and his wife both served as Fellows on the faculty in the Center for Advanced Studies at [[Wesleyan University]].<ref>[http://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/scarecs/1/ Recent Thoughts on the Two Cultures], Wesleyan University</ref><ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.wesleyan.edu/175/wesfacts.html |title= WesFacts |publisher=Wesleyan University |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070924182431/http://www.wesleyan.edu/175/wesfacts.html#10 |archive-date=24 September 2007 |access-date= 23 November 2009}}</ref><ref>[http://www.wesleyan.edu/libr/schome/FAs/ce1000-137.html Guide to the Center for Advanced Studies Records, 1958–1969] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170314083709/http://www.wesleyan.edu/libr/schome/FAs/ce1000-137.html |date=14 March 2017 }}, Wesleyan University</ref>

===Literary work===

Snow's first novel was a [[whodunit]], ''Death under Sail'' (1932). In 1975 he wrote a biography of [[Anthony Trollope]]. He is better known as the author of a sequence of novels entitled ''Strangers and Brothers'' in which he depicts intellectuals in modern academic and government settings. The best-known of the sequence is ''The Masters''. It deals with the internal politics of a Cambridge college as it prepares to elect a new master. With the appeal of an insider's view, the novel depicts concerns other than the strictly academic that influence decisions of supposedly objective scholars. ''The Masters'' and ''The New Men'' were jointly awarded the [[James Tait Black Memorial Prize]] in 1954.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.englit.ed.ac.uk/jtbwins.htm |title=The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes: The Prize Winners |publisher=Englit.ed.ac.uk |date=21 May 2012 |access-date=22 June 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070115050855/http://www.englit.ed.ac.uk/jtbwins.htm |archive-date=15 January 2007 }}</ref> ''Corridors of Power'' added a phrase to the language of the day. In 1974, Snow's novel ''In Their Wisdom'' [[List of winners and shortlisted authors of the Booker Prize for Fiction|was shortlisted for the Booker Prize]].<ref>[http://www.themanbookerprize.com/prize/authors/135 C P Snow] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100103081530/http://themanbookerprize.com/prize/authors/135 |date=3 January 2010 }} at the Man Booker Prize website</ref>

In ''The Realists'', an examination of the work of eight novelists – [[Stendhal]], [[Honoré de Balzac]], [[Charles Dickens]], [[Fyodor Dostoevsky]], [[Leo Tolstoy]], [[Benito Pérez Galdós]], [[Henry James]] and [[Marcel Proust]] – Snow makes a robust defence of the realistic novel.

The storyline of his novel ''The Search'' is referred to in [[Dorothy L. Sayers]]'s ''[[Gaudy Night]]'' and is used to help elicit the criminal's motive.

===''The Two Cultures''===
{{Main|The Two Cultures}}

On 7 May 1959, Snow delivered a [[Rede Lecture]] called ''[[The Two Cultures]]'', which provoked "widespread and heated debate".<ref name=Columbia/><ref>[[W. Patrick McCray]] (2019) Snow's storm Vol 364, Issue 6439 pp. 430-432
{{doi|10.1126/science.aaw9396}}</ref> Subsequently, published as ''The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution'', the lecture argued that the breakdown of communication between the "two cultures" of modern society – the sciences and the humanities – was a major hindrance to solving the world's problems. In particular, Snow argues that the quality of education in the world is on the decline. He wrote:

::A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the [[Second Law of Thermodynamics]]. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: 'Have you read a work of [[Shakespeare]]'s?'

::I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question – such as, What do you mean by [[mass]], or [[acceleration]], which is the scientific equivalent of saying, 'Can you read?' – not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their [[Neolithic]] ancestors would have had.

The satirists [[Flanders and Swann]] used the first part of this quotation as the basis for their short monologue and song, "First and Second Law".

As delivered in 1959, Snow's Rede Lectures specifically condemned the British educational system, as having since the Victorian period over-rewarded the humanities (especially [[Latin language|Latin]] and [[Ancient Greek|Greek]]) at the expense of [[science education]]. He believed that in practice this deprived British elites (in politics, administration, and industry) of adequate preparation for managing the modern scientific world. By contrast, Snow said, German and American schools sought to prepare their citizens equally in the sciences and humanities, and better scientific teaching enabled those countries' rulers to compete more effectively in a scientific age. Later discussion of ''The Two Cultures'' tended to obscure Snow's initial focus on differences between British systems (of both schooling and social class) and those of competing countries.

Snow was attacked by [[F. R. Leavis]] in his Richmond Lecture of 1962 whose subject was "The Two Cultures", something that has come to be referred to as "the two cultures controversy".<ref>{{Citation |title=The Richmond lecture |date=2013 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/memoirs-of-a-leavisite/richmond-lecture/E89B84F9B17A10856A593AB75FBF96A9 |work=Memoirs of a Leavisite: The Decline and Fall of Cambridge English |pages=67–73 |editor-last=Ellis |editor-first=David |access-date=2023-08-19 |publisher=Liverpool University Press |isbn=978-1-78138-711-5}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite news |last=Collini |first=Stefan |date=2013-08-16 |title=Leavis v Snow: the two-cultures bust-up 50 years on|work=The Guardian|location=London |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/16/leavis-snow-two-cultures-bust |access-date=2023-08-19 |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> Although it was seen as a personal attack against Snow, Leavis maintained that he was targeting how public debates worked.<ref name=":0" />

===Publications===
{{Infobox coat of arms
|name=Coat of arms of The Lord Snow
|shield = Azure semy of snow crystals Proper.
|crest = A telescope fesswise between two pens in saltire Proper.
|supporters = On either side a Siamese Cat Proper.
|motto = Aut Inveniam Viam Aut Faciam<ref>{{cite book|title=Debrett's Peerage |date=1973}}</ref>}}

====''Strangers and Brothers'' series====
{{main|Strangers and Brothers}}
*''[[George Passant]]'' (first published as ''Strangers and Brothers''), 1940
*''[[The Light and the Dark]]'', 1947
*''[[Time of Hope]]'', 1949
*''[[The Masters (novel)|The Masters]]'', 1951
*''[[The New Men]]'', 1954
*''[[Homecomings (novel)|Homecomings]]'', 1956
*''[[The Conscience of the Rich]]'', 1958
*''[[The Affair (1960 novel)|The Affair]]'', 1959
*''[[Corridors of Power (novel)|Corridors of Power]]'', 1964
*''[[The Sleep of Reason (1968 novel)|The Sleep of Reason]]'', 1968
*''[[Last Things (novel)|Last Things]]'', 1970

====Other fiction====
*''Death Under Sail'', 1932
*''New Lives for Old'', 1933
*''The Search'', 1934
*''The Malcontents'', 1972
*''In Their Wisdom'', 1974, shortlisted for the [[Booker Prize]]
*''A Coat of Varnish'', 1979

====Non-fiction====
*''[[The Two Cultures|The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution]]'', 1959
*''Science and Government'', 1961, First Four Square Edition, 1963
*''[[The Two Cultures|The Two Cultures and a Second Look]]'', 1963
*''Variety of Men: [[Ernest Rutherford|Rutherford]]; G. H. Hardy; [[H. G. Wells]]; [[Albert Einstein|Einstein]]; [[David Lloyd George|Lloyd George]]; [[Winston Churchill|Churchill]]; [[Robert Frost]]; [[Dag Hammarskjöld]]; [[Stalin]]'', 1967
*''The State of Siege'', 1968
*''Public Affairs'', 1971
*''Trollope: His Life and Art'', 1975
*''The Realists: Portraits of Eight Novelists'', 1978 ([[Balzac]]; [[Charles Dickens|Dickens]]; [[Dostoevsky]]; [[Benito Perez Galdos|Galdos]]; [[Henry James]]; [[Proust]]; [[Stendhal]]; [[Tolstoy]])
*''The Physicists: A Generation that Changed the World'', 1981

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* [[William Cooper (novelist)|William Cooper]]. ''C.P. Snow'', Writers and Their Work series, Longmans, Green & Co. (1959, rev. 1962, 1971)
* [[F. R. Leavis]]. ''Two Cultures? The Significance of C.P. Snow'', London, Chatto & Windus (1962)
* David Shusterman. ''C.P. Snow'', Twayne's English Authors Series (1975, expanded 1991)
* Suguna Ramanathan. ''The Novels of C.P. Snow: A Critical Introduction'',  Scribner (1978)
* Paul Boytinck. ''C. P. Snow: A Reference Guide'', Hall (1980)
* J. C. D. Brand. [https://www.proquest.com/docview/1298063547 "The Scientific Papers of C P Snow"], ''History of Science'', Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 111–127 (1988)
* John de la Mothe. ''C. P. Snow and the Struggle of Modernity'', University of Texas Press (1992) {{ISBN|978-0-292-72916-2}}
* Geoffrey Heptonstall. "Venturing the Real", ''Contemporary Review'', Vol. 290 (June 2008)
* Terrance L. Lewis. ''C.P. Snow's Strangers and Brothers as Mid-Twentieth-Century History'' (2009)
* Guy Ortolano. ''The Two Cultures Controversy: Science, Literature and Cultural Politics in Post-War Britain'', Cambridge University Press (2009)
* Nicholas Tredell. ''C. P. Snow: The Dynamics of Hope'', Palgrave Macmillan (2012)

== External links ==
* {{Wikiquote inline}}

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{{Succession box|title=[[Rector of the University of St Andrews]]|years=1961–1964|before=[[Robert Boothby, Baron Boothby|Baron Boothby]]|after=[[John Rothenstein]]}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Snow, C. P.}}
[[Category:1905 births]]
[[Category:1980 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century English male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century English novelists]]
[[Category:Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:Alumni of University of London Worldwide]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Leicester]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of London]]
[[Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire]]
[[Category:English male novelists]]
[[Category:Fellows of Christ's College, Cambridge|Snow, C.P.]]
[[Category:James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients]]
[[Category:Knights Bachelor]]
[[Category:Labour Party (UK) life peers]]
[[Category:Life peers created by Elizabeth II]]
[[Category:People educated at Alderman Newton's School, Leicester]]
[[Category:Rectors of the University of St Andrews]]
[[Category:Scientists from Leicester]]
[[Category:Wesleyan University faculty]]
[[Category:Writers from Leicester]]