The Life of Sir William Hartley

Soon after the death of Sir William Hartley I was invited by his family to write his Life. It was not possible for me to decline the invitation, though I was already committed to a heavy programme of literary work. We had been united by a long and intimate friendship; we had been fellow-labourers in a common task; I held him in the highest esteem and cherished for him a loyal affection. More over it was due to his initiative that I left Oxford to enter the service of my own Church. I could do no other, then, than respond to this last obligation of friendship. Yet I was conscious that in some ways I might be unfitted for the task. The world of business, in which he achieved so resounding a success, is territory which I have left almost unexplored; and the technicalities of manufacture are, if possible, even more unfamiliar. But it was the wish of the family, as it was in harmony with my own instinct, that the emphasis of the biography should lie on the personality of the man and on his activities so far as they disclosed it, rather than on the mere facts in themselves or the steps by which he rose till he became one of the merchant princes of our land.

In fulfilment of this design I have not attempted to write a continuous record of events. The thread of biography would have failed me again and again. For while the life of Sir William was rich in action far beyond the common measure, it was not the kind of action which could readily be recorded in a connected narrative. I quickly recognized that the material must be handled according to subject rather than forced into a chronological scheme. The facts, so far as it was possible to ascertain them, could still secure a place in the record; but they are more appropriately grouped on this method, and their significance is more clearly revealed. Nevertheless it has been possible to throw part of the material into the more strictly narrative form, especially the story of his earlier and of his closing years, together with a summary of the part he played in the affairs of his Church.