George Kitson Clark

George Sidney Roberts Kitson Clark (14 June 1900 – 8 December 1975) was an English historian, specialising in the nineteenth century. He was a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge from 1922 to 1975, and additionally held the title of Reader in Constitutional History in the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge between 1954 and 1967.

Early life and education George Kitson Clark born on born on 14 June 1900 in Leeds, Yorkshire, England. He was the son of the engineer Edwin Kitson Clark (1866-1943) who began his engineering training with a three year pupilage which he served at the Airedale Foundry of Messrs. Kitson from 1888-1891, later becoming a partner and chairman of the firm. George's sister was Mary Kitson Clark. His paternal grandfather was E. C. Clark, Regius Professor of Civil Law at the University of Cambridge. He was disappointed never to hold a university professorial chair or to reach the senior leadership of his college. G. D. H. Cole identified a "Kitson Clark" school of historians revising the assessment of the Anti-Corn Law League and the Chartists. He delivered the Ford Lectures in 1959–60, speaking on "The Making of Victorian England".

Jack Plumb, who disliked Kitson Clark, describes him as a reformer of the History Tripos and obstacle to Lewis Namier, with various swipes. He served as chair of the Faculty Board of History from 1956 to 1958. Although he was a conservative in most of his views, he "played a prominent part" in enlarging the Historical Tripos syllabus to include American history and the history of the British Empire. He died the same year, on 8 December 1975 at his college in Cambridge.

Selected works

Peel and the Conservative Party: a Study in Party Politics, 1832–41 (1929; 1st ed.) Guide for Research Students Working on Historical Subjects (1958) Making of Victorian England (1962) Peel and the Conservative Party (1964; 2nd ed.) An Expanding Society: Britain 1830–1900 (1967) The Critical Historian (1967) Churchmen and the Condition of England 1832–1885 (1973) Portrait of an Age (1977) editor