Geoffrey Holmes

Geoffrey Shorter Holmes, (17 July 1928 – 25 November 1993) was an English historian of early eighteenth century English politics.

Academic career Holmes was born in Sheffield, England and educated at Woodhouse Grammar School and Pembroke College, Oxford, graduating with a BA in 1948. He served in the British Army in India before returning to Oxford in 1950 as a research assistant to David Ogg. In 1952 he graduated with a B.Litt.

From 1952 until 1969 he was successively assistant lecturer, lecturer and senior lecturer at Glasgow University's history department. From 1969 until his retirement in 1985 he taught history at Lancaster University, first as reader (1969–72) and then as professor (1973–83). During 1977-1978 he was a visiting fellow at All Souls College, Oxford and was awarded the degree of D.Litt. by the University of Oxford in 1978. He was elected to a Fellowship of the British Academy in 1983 and was a vice-president of the Royal Historical Society (1985–1989). Walcott's thesis was much criticised and Holmes's book provided a new, more convincing interpretation. Holmes used more than fifty manuscript sources that had been unavailable before 1945.

Henry Horwitz claimed that Holmes replaced Walcott's work with "a bold yet subtle analysis that puts Augustan politics in truer perspective than ever before".

Austin Woolrych said of British Politics in the Age of Anne:

No work of history in our time has won its author a more instant reputation, or more decisively influenced the interpretation of the subject it treats. ... t fairly earned its acclamation as a work of art. ... t is alive with deft character-sketches, sharp detail and apt quotations. Even if it had not effected a major historical revision, as it did, it would deserve to be read as literature. ... It has stood the test of time well.

Works

JSTOR

JSTOR JSTOR

online (a collection of his major essays) (a previously unpublished lecture)