The Italian Chapter (Florence)
Recent News:
- 2025 Oration
- UCL Chapter Orations 1954-2003 now online
- The Vatican Letter
- Crabtree's Australian CV
- Crabtree's Combined UCL-Australian CV
With great sadness the Chapter advises Elders and Scholars of the recent passing of Elder Jim McGrath. Jim, who gave the 1992 Oration, had been a senior office bearer in the Chapter for many years, and in recent years held the post of Living Witness.
2026 Oration
The Fifty-Second Annual Celebration of Joseph Crabtree's life and works will be held on 11 February 2026 - near the 272nd anniversary of his birth - at the Graduate House, Melbourne University, in the Lower Crabtree Hall, a room especially labelled for the occasion.
Our fifty-second Orator will be Mr Matthew Peckham MA.
Why Napoleon blamed Crabtree for his defeats
Matthew Peckham's study has been constrained to an examination of Crabtree's impact on Napoleon's Eastern Campaign, in Egypt, the Levant and Syria. Crabtree, appointed to Napoleon's Commission des Sciences et des Arts in the guise of a balloonist, was able to infiltrate and undermine his campaigns in Egypt and Syria, leading to the Little Corporal's inevitable defeat. What has been hitherto undisclosed to History is the advantage afforded by Crabtree to Horatio Nelson at the so-called battle of the Nile, a vital contribution the Duke of Wellington (to his undying shame) sought, in the coffee-houses and chocolate- shops of London, to diminish. There are mentions of several notable individuals, and speculation regarding incontrovertible possibilities that were of necessity excluded from the usual histories. Patrons are advised that several diverting illustrations will accompany the oration, the speaker will tolerate the interposition of salient questions or comments of proper academic or historical interest.
Matthew Peckham MA came to the Crabtree Foundation late in life, a lamentable fact that he attributes to the rashness of youth. After undergraduate studies at Monash University, where he studied at the feet of such Crabtree luminaries as Professors Arthur Brown, David Bradley and John Rickard and swordsmanship under the original Living Burden, Dr Gordon Troup. His prospects of an academic career were fatally undermined by his addiction to the Theatre. He worked for many years as the Technical Manager of the Monash Performing Arts precinct. This was followed by time as Senior Head Mechanist at Sydney Theatre Company, and later Technical Manager at Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne. He completed the MA (Arts Management) at RMIT University and holds an array of qualifications including a licensed dogman, rigger, forklift driver, safety warden, elevated work platform operator and Autocad Draughtsman. He is also certificated to work safely on construction sites, at heights and in confined spaces. His array of qualifications and skills truly emulates the great Joseph Crabtree in both range and eccentricity.
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"Much was known about Joseph Crabtree, poet and polymath, in the nineteenth century; much was forgotten or deliberately obscured in the twentieth century - until 1951. In that year it happened that, at one of Professor Hugh Smith's weekly seminars for scholars of all disciplines or none, two or three of those present discovered a common interest in the life and work of the extraordinary great man, Joseph Crabtree. This interest grew and intensified until Hugh Smith and others at University College London were inspired to set up the Crabtree Foundation at the College."
(from the Prolegomenon to Volume 1 of the Collected Orations of the Crabtree Foundation)
On 17 February 1954 Professor James Sutherland, Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at UCL, delivered the oration entitled "Homage to Crabtree". The meeting was presided over by Professor Hugh Smith, Quain Professor of English Language and Literature at UCL, and twenty-four scholars were present.
This was the inaugural meeting of the Foundation which ever since has been dedicated to researching and publicising the life and work of Joseph Crabtree (1754-1854). Crabtree's achievements had been grievously overlooked, misinterpreted, occasionally traduced and in some cases quite deliberately suppressed, leading to a situation amounting, in Professor Sutherland's words, "almost to a conspiracy of silence". The traduction continues to the present day, as can be seen by the deletion in late 2014 of the Wikipedia entry on Crabtree, which had been compiled by scholars in order to reveal his contributions to the wider community.
Since that inaugural meeting the Foundation has now expanded to over 400 members, or more correctly "Scholars", in the first President's words, "scattered as they are over the face of the world", who have established chapters in Australia, Italy and Southern Africa. Each chapter typically meets annually on the Wednesday closest to Saint Valentine's Day, the day of Crabtree's birth, for a dinner and an oration by a distinguished scholar on some hitherto undiscovered aspect of Crabtree's career and genius. Their findings have established the international scope and diversity of Crabtree's life and achievements.
The Australian Chapter was formed in Melbourne in 1975 at a dinner arranged by the late Professor Arthur Brown to honour Bryan Bennett, a fellow Orator of the Parent Foundation. Also believed to be at the dinner were Richard Belshaw, Keith Bennetts, Don Charlwood, Pat Kilbride and Gordon Taylor; all future Orators. Each year since then the Chapter has celebrated Crabtree's birth with a dinner and oration.
Initially the Chapter met at the Club at Monash University, and in 2010 moved its dinner and oration to the aptly-named Savage Club in the City.
