Papers of Thelma and Robert Niklaus

Thelma Niklaus was a prominent activist of the Peace Pledge Union, a pacifist organisation established by Reverend Hugh Richard Lawrie 'Dick' Sheppard in 1934. She was also involved in setting up aid for the Basque children refugees that came to the United Kingdom in 1937 following the bombing of Gernika by the Nazi German Luftwaffe's Condor Legion and the Fascist Italian Aviazione Legionaria, under the code name 'Operation Rügen'. Thelma Niklaus was instrumental in setting up the colony at the Adelphi Centre in Langham, Colchester, where approximately 64 children were fostered between the summer of 1937 and the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939. Reaching University College London, largely by means of scholarships, she took her BA degree with honours in French and was bent on an academic career when one of her French lecturers, Robert Niklaus, fell in love with her and married her. Her husband’s university appointments took her to live first in Derbyshire and then in Devon. In both she was extremely active in local affairs and particularly in local drama which fascinated her throughout her life. Together with theatre producer Peter Coates, she wrote ‘The Little Fellow: the life and work of Charles Spencer Chaplin' in 1951, which was a best seller at the time. In 1956 she wrote ‘Harlequin Phoenix’, a history of Harlequin and the commedia dell arte through the ages with a wonderful cover by Mervyn Peake. Her first novel, ‘Tamahine’ written in 1957, was well reviewed by Nancy Spain and then made into a film by Associated British Pictures Ltd. It starred Nancy Kwan, John Fraser, Dennis Price, Derek Nimmo and Justine Lord. This was followed by a second novel ‘Lexy’ about a troubled adolescent in 1962. She also translated a number of children’s books from French to English. Thelma had three children from her marriage to Robert Niklaus: Paul, John and Hedli.

Robert Niklaus was a Professor of French at Exeter University for 23 years and a distinguished scholar of 18th-century French studies. He was born in London in 1910 to Swiss parents (his father was a Calvinist minister), and educated at the Lycée Français de Londres. He took two undergraduate degrees, one at the University of Lille and then a BA in French with first class honours at London University. In 1934 he obtained his PhD for his thesis on the poet Jean Morais - published in 1936. Two years later he was appointed to his first full-time post, as Assistant Lecturer at Manchester University, where he remained until 1952, when he became Professor at Exeter. Niklaus built up the French department at Exeter from a small unit into one of the largest in Britain which included Spanish and Italian. He was active, too, in the launch and growth of many learned societies. He was President at various times of the British Society for 18th-century Studies and of the Society for French Studies, for 10 years he was a Treasurer of the International Society for 18th-century Studies and for 14 years a member of the Executive Committee of the Modern Humanities Research Association. He was also President of the Association of University Teachers and of the International Association of University Professors and Lecturers. At Exeter, besides being Head of Department, he was for three years Dean of the Faculty of Arts, 1959-62, and then Deputy Vice-Chancellor, 1965-67. After his retirement in 1975, Niklaus remained busy, serving as a visiting professor at the universities of British Columbia, Natal and Rhodes. From 1977 to 1978 he was the Head of the Department of Languages at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he helped to reshape the department and re-energise the academic programme. He married Thelma Jones in 1935 and they had three children. Throughout the 1930s Robert and Thelma were active in the Peace Pledge Union movement.