Francis Clive-Ross

Biographie :

Francis Clive-Ross (1921-1981) was the founder, editor-in-chief and publisher of Studies in Comparative Religion, the earliest and most influential English-language journal of traditional studies. Studies in Comparative Religion was founded in Britain in 1963 and published under the name Tomorrow until 1967, when it was changed to its present name. Four quarterly issues per year, containing over 1,200 articles in total, were published during the first 25 years of Studies in Comparative Religion’s existence, before its publication was interrupted in 1987.

Clive-Ross was also a Trustee of the World of Islam Festival held in London in 1976 and penned a number of editorials and articles.

During its first 25 years, the journal had its offices in a wing of the Clive-Ross home in Pates Manor, Bedfont, which dates its origins to the 15th century. Charles le Gai Eaton wrote about Clive-Ross’s dedication to Studies in Comparative Religion:

It was because he himself believed that such ideas are the most real things in the world that Clive-Ross found the strength to struggle against difficulties (not least those of funding) which might have seemed insuperable to a lesser man. It was his deep conviction that the beliefs, the spiritual “point of view”, expressed in the pages of Studies represented a truth for which the world is hungry that enabled him to fulfill his task up to the end of his life. In this he was single-minded and showed a toughness which contrasted with his amiable and easygoing nature.