Arnold Haskell

Arnold Lionel David Haskell CBE (19 July 1903, London – 14 November 1980, Bath) was a British dance critic who founded the Camargo Society in 1930.

With Ninette de Valois, he was influential in the development of the Royal Ballet School, later becoming the school's headmaster.

Son of banker Jacob Silas Haskell and Emmy (née Mesritz), Haskell grew up at Queen's Gate, South Kensington, London,

and was educated at Westminster School and Trinity Hall, Cambridge (where he read law, and was a friend of fellow Old Westminsters Angus MacPhail and Ivor Montagu).

Haskell became fascinated by ballet when his mother prevailed on him to come with her to see the thirteen-year-old Alicia Markova at Seraphine Astafieva's studio in Chelsea.

Haskell first went to Australia in 1936 with the visiting Monte Carlo Russian Ballet as a publicist/reporter, writing articles and reviews for several Australian newspapers and journals, such as The Home, and sent reports home to England for magazines such as the Dancing Times.

His book Dancing Round The World, published in London in 1937, is an account of his adventures on that tour.

He returned to Australia in 1938 to gather material for Waltzing Matilda: a background to Australia published in 1943.

On this second visit he continued writing articles and reviews for Australian newspapers and magazines, this time for the second Ballets Russes company to tour Australia, the Covent Garden Russian Ballet.

His son Francis Haskell was Professor of Art History at Oxford 1967–1995.

In 1974, Haskell was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Letters) by the University of Bath.