University of Virginia Library

RICHARD HEATH DABNEY

The Dabney Residence House was named
in honor of Richard Heath Dabney, Professor
of History and first Dean of the Department
of Graduate Studies—a distinguished
member of a distinguished family.
He was of English-French ancestry, and was
born in Memphis, Tennessee, 29 March
1860. His father, Virginius Dabney, was a
captain in the Confederate Army, a schoolteacher,
and the author of two novels of
social life in old Virginia characterized by a
Tristram Shandyish whimsicality: The
Story of Don Miff (a child's lisping pronunciation
of John Smith) and Gold That
Did Not Glitter. His father's father,
Thomas Smith Gregory Dabney, was the
gallant figure portrayed in A Southern
Planter, a biography by his daughter, Mrs.
Susan D. Smedes. Richard Heath Dabney's
mother's maiden name was Ellen Maria
Heath, and his maternal ancestry was likewise
notable. Her father, James Ewell
Heath, was the author of Edge Hill, a novel

with a Southern background, he was the
generous contributor of "Editorial Remarks"
to the first volume of The Southern
Literary Messenger, and for many years he
was the Auditor of the Accounts of the
State of Virginia; and his father, John
Heath, was the first President of Phi
Beta Kappa. The family eminence has continued.
Richard Heath Dabney married,
in 1888, Mary Amanda Bentley of Richmond,
who died the following year; and,
in 1899, Lily Heth Davis of Albemarle
County. Of the second marriage were born
a son, Virginius Dabney, Pulitzer Prize
winner as Editor of The Richmond Times-Dispatch
and the author of several penetrating
book-length studies of political and
social import, and two daughters, Lucy
Davis Dabney, who died in childhood, and
Alice Saunders Dabney, wife of John
Crump Parker of Franklin, a leading Virginia
lawyer.

Though born in Memphis, Richard
Heath Dabney spent most of his life in
Virginia. He studied at home or in a private

school until he entered the University
of Virginia in 1876. Three years later he
gained the M.A. degree; and he then spent
several years of graduate study in Germany,
receiving his Ph.D., with distinction, from
Heidelberg in 1885. From 1886 to 1889 he
was Professor of History at Indiana University.
It was in 1889 that he joined the
Faculty at the University of Virginia, being
successively Adjunct Professor of History,
Associate Professor of History, Professor
of Historical and Economical Science, and
from 1906 to 1938 Professor of History.
From 1905 to 1923 he was the first Dean
of the Department of Graduate Studies.
He retired from his professorship in 1938,
but he continued to live in Charlottesville,
an esteemed Nestor, until his death 16
May 1947.

Thus from 1889 to 1938 Dabney was
an active participant in the notable expansion
of the University of Virginia's functions
as a university. The earlier part of
his teaching and graduate school administration
had to be performed with a minimum

of assistance, and the constant pressure
of routine duties curtailed both the
opportunity and the facility to write. It is
to be noted that his Causes of the French
Revolution (the printed form of lectures
delivered at Washington and Lee University)
was published in 1888, and his John
Randolph, A Character Sketch in 1898.
But even the pedagogic groove could not
confine his wisdom as a counsellor or his
flair for inspiring comradeship. His argument
for a greater unity and cohesion in
college classes (quoted at length in Bruce's
History) as a potent asset for alumni loyalty
failed to persuade when it was advanced
in 1893, but its validity has not
been without recognition in the years that
have followed. Through his simplicity and
directness, his consideration for others, and
his example of honest effort and high ideals,
his personal influence was widespread. The
record, preserved in letters now in the
Alderman Library, of his enduring intimacy
with Woodrow Wilson, an intimacy
which began in 1881 when both were
students at the University of Virginia, is
a testament to a stimulating and magnanimous
friendship.