ABSTRACT
My study of Crabtree, the creative criminologist, of necessity required consideration of the appointment of the great man as Reader in Criminology in the year 1809 at Oxford University. It is true that until 1958 the University concealed the existence of the Readership. In the light of subsequent appointments, the prior concealment became understandable. But in 1809 the post was still one of academic merit, unlike the position into which it declined after 1880 when the appointment became a mere sinecure without duties or position, granted by those in power to their toadies of a woolly-minded liberal disposition; very similar to our own Equal Opportunities Commission.
