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Advancing with the Army, the formation of the professional elite
| In the United Kingdom and Ireland university education has often been seen as a way for individuals from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds to make successful careers, what in Scotland were known as ‘lads o’pairts’. The authors in a recent wide ranging study of the medical profession in the army during the French wars (1794-1815) have concluded that university education was a necessary condition for entry (something that was not widely known before), but not for success, which depended as much on patronage, connection and being in the right place at the right time. Interestingly the great majority of army doctors came from disadvantaged backgrounds often in disadvantaged parts of the British Isles, such as rural Ireland and Scotland. Without exception they attended universities and most took additional classes and gained extra qualifications after they entered practice. Entering the medical profession was one way in which such men could gain entry to the elite officer corps without the necessary money and influence and indeed the careers of many of their children suggest that they were the advanced guard of what we might call a professional project that subsists to this day. About a third gain access to what we might consider to be the elite proper, contributing to the republic of letters, being elected fellows of learned societies and, perhaps most important, leaving large fortunes. The authors will argue that it is possible to generalise from this study and set university education in the wider context of other professions and of family strategies, something that has been overlooked in previous elite studies. Both the authors have extensive experience of the history of universities and elite formation from the early modern period to today. Michael Moss wrote the concluding chapters of the recent history of the University of Glasgow and Laurence Brockliss is engaged in a large study of Magdalen College Oxford and its members.
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