Editing Enoch Powell (section)

==Education==
Powell attended a [[dame school]] until he was eleven. He was then a pupil for three years at [[King's Norton Boys' School|King's Norton Grammar School for Boys]] before he won a scholarship to [[King Edward's School, Birmingham|King Edward's School]] in Birmingham in 1925, aged 13.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=6}} The legacy of the [[First World War]] loomed large for Powell; Almost all his teachers had fought in the war. He formed the view that Britain and Germany would fight again.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=6–7, 10}}

Powell's mother began teaching him Greek in the two weeks of Christmas break in 1925. By the time he started the next term, he had attained a level in Greek that most pupils would reach after two years. Within two terms, Powell was top of the classics form.<ref group="nb">His classmate, [[Christopher Evans (theologian)|Christopher Evans]], recalled that Powell was "austere" and "really unlike any schoolboy one had known ... He was quite a phenomenon".</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=7}}<ref group="nb">Another contemporary, [[Denis Hills]], later said that Powell "carried an armful of books (Greek texts?) and kept to himself ... he was reputed to be cleverer than any of the masters".</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=8}}

Precociously, Powell won all three of the school's classics prizes<ref group="nb">[[Thucydides]], [[Herodotus]] and [[Divinity (academic discipline)|Divinity]])</ref> and would win more later in his school career. In the fifth form and began to translate Herodotus's ''[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]]''. He entered the sixth form two years before his classmates, and was remembered as a hard-working student.<ref group="nb">Powell's contemporary, [[Roy Lewis]], recalled that "we thought that the masters were afraid of him".</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=8}} Powell also won a medal in gymnastics and gained a proficiency in the clarinet. He contemplated studying at the [[Royal Academy of Music]] but his parents persuaded him to try for a scholarship at [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]].{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=9}}<ref group="nb">Duggie Smith, Powell's form-master in the lower classical sixth and his principal classics master in the upper sixth, recalled in 1952: "Of all my pupils, he always insisted on the highest standards of accuracy and knowledge in those who taught him ... He was a pupil from whom I learnt more than most".</ref>{{sfn|Shepherd|1997|p=11}}

It was during his time in the sixth form that Powell learned German. He was influenced by reading [[James George Frazer]]'s ''[[The Golden Bough]]'' and [[Thomas Carlyle]]'s ''[[Sartor Resartus]]'', which led him towards the works of [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]] and [[Friedrich Nietzsche]].{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=10–12}}{{sfn|Shepherd|1997|p=9}}<ref group="nb">In 1929, he was awarded the Higher School Certificate with a distinction in [[Latin]], Greek and ancient history, and won the school's Lee Divinity Prize for an essay on the [[New Testament]] after having memorised [[St Paul]]'s [[Epistle to the Galatians]] in Greek.</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=12}}<ref group="nb">Powell also won the Badger Prize for English Literature twice and the Lightfoot Thucydides Prize.</ref>{{sfn|Shepherd|1997|p=15}}

Aged 17 Powell sat the classics scholarship paper at [[Trinity College, Cambridge]], and won the top award.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=12}}<ref group="nb">[[Ronald Melville (civil servant)|Sir Ronald Melville]], who sat the exams at the same time, recalled that "the exams mostly lasted three hours. Powell left the room halfway through each of them". Powell later told Melville that, in one-and-a-half hours on the Greek paper, he translated the text into Thucydides's style of Greek and then in the style of Herodotus.</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=12–13}}<ref group="nb">For another paper, Powell also had to translate a passage from [[Bede]], which he did into [[Plato]]nic Greek. In the remaining time, Powell later remembered, "I tore it up and translated it again into Herodotean Greek – [[Ionic Greek]] – (which I had never written before) and then, still having time to spare, I proceeded to annotate it".</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=13}}{{sfn|Shepherd|1997|p=16}} 
Powell studied at Trinity from 1930 to 1933. He became almost a recluse and devoted his time to studying.<ref group="nb">On days without lectures or supervisions, he would read from 5:30 am to 9:30 pm at night.</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=14}}{{sfn|Shepherd|1997|p=18}} ''[[Granta]]'' called him "The Hermit of Trinity".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=19}}<ref group="nb">Powell later said "I thought the only thing to do was to work. I thought that was what I was going to Cambridge for, because I never knew of anything else".</ref>{{sfn|Shepherd|1997|p=17}} At the age of 18 his first paper to a classical journal was published (in German) in the ''[[w:de:Philologische Wochenschrift|Philologische Wochenschrift]]'', on a line of Herodotus.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=15}} While studying at Cambridge, Powell became aware that there was another classicist who signed his name as "John U. Powell". Powell decided to use his middle name and began referring to himself as "Enoch Powell".{{sfn|Shepherd|1997|p=16}}{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=12}} Powell won the [[John Craven, 1st Baron Craven of Ryton#Craven scholarships|Craven scholarship]] at the beginning of his second term in 1931.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=19}} It was at Cambridge that Powell fell under the influence of the poet [[A. E. Housman]],<ref>{{cite book|author=Powell, John Enoch|title=First Poems: Fifty Short Lyrics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fb-PHAAACAAJ|year=1937|publisher=Printed at the Shakespeare Head Press and sold by B. Blackwell}}</ref> then Professor of [[Latin]] at the university.

At Cambridge, Powell won a number of prizes, including the Percy Pemberton Prize, the [[Porson Prize]], the Yeats Prize and the Lees Knowles, the Members' prize for Latin prose, the [[Browne Medal]], the First Chancellor's Classical Medal, and the Cromer Greek essay prize of the [[British Academy]].<ref group="nb">having written on "Thucydides, his moral and historical principles and their influence in later antiquities"</ref>{{sfn|Shepherd|1997|p=26}}<ref group="nb">The Chancellor of Cambridge University, the Conservative Party leader [[Stanley Baldwin]], told the Master of Trinity [[J. J. Thomson]]: "Powell reads as if he understands". He graduated with [[First Class Honours|first class]] with distinction</ref>{{sfn|Shepherd|1997|p=27}}<ref group="nb">Shortly before his finals in May 1933, Powell became ill with [[tonsillitis]] and then suffered [[pyelitis]]. His neighbour in [[Trinity Great Court]], [[Frederick Simpson (historian)|Frederick Simpson]], arranged that the [[Tripos]] examination papers be sent to the nursing home where he was convalescing. Despite having a temperature of 104 degrees (40 °C) when he sat the last of the seven papers, Powell gained a [[First Class Honours|first class]] with distinction.</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=21}}{{sfn|Shepherd|1997|p=27}}

Powell took a course in [[Urdu]] at the School of Oriental Studies (now [[SOAS, University of London]]), because he felt that his long-cherished ambition of becoming [[Viceroy of India]] would be unattainable without knowledge of an [[Languages of India|Indian language]].{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=568}} Later, during his political career, he would speak to his Indian-born constituents in Urdu.<ref>[[Vernon Bogdanor]], '[https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lecture/transcript/print/enoch-powell-and-the-sovereignty-of-parliament/ Enoch Powell and the Sovereignty of Parliament]'. gresham.ac.uk. Retrieved 20 November 2019.</ref> Powell went on to learn other languages, such as Welsh, [[modern Greek]], and [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]].