Sir Keith Grahame Feiling (1884–1977) was Chichele Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford, 1946–1950. He was noted for his conservative interpretation of the past, showing an empire-oriented ideology in defence of hierarchical authority, paternalism, deference, the monarchy, Church, family, nation, status, and place. A Tory Democrat, he felt that conservatives possessed more character than other people, as he tried to demonstrate in his books on the history of the Conservative Party. He acknowledged the necessity of reform—as long as it was gradual, top-down, and grounded not in abstract theory but in an appreciation of English history. Thus he celebrated the reforms of the 1830s[1].
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The son of Ernest Feiling and Joan Barbara Hawkins, Keith Grahame Feiling was educated at Marlborough College, Marlborough, Wiltshire, England and Balliol College, Oxford.
Feiling was appointed tutor in history at Christ Church, Oxford in 1911 and became lecturer in Modern History in 1928 and was elected Ford's Lecturer in 1930. He was Chichele Professor of Modern History at All Souls College, Oxford between 1946 and 1950.
He was invested as an Officer, Order of the British Empire and was awarded the James Tait Black Award for his biography of Warren Hastings in 1954.
For Feiling's 80th birthday in 1964, Hugh Trevor-Roper edited a festschrift, Essays in British history presented to Sir Keith Feiling with a foreword by Lord David Cecil.