George Norman Clark

Sir George Norman Clark, (27 February 1890 – 6 February 1979) was an English historian, academic and British Army officer. He was the Chichele Professor of Economic History at the University of Oxford from 1931 to 1943 and the Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge from 1943 to 1947. He served as the provost of Oriel College, Oxford, from 1947 to 1957.

Early life and education Clark was born on 27 February 1890 in Halifax, Yorkshire, England, to James Walker Clark and his wife Mary Clark (née Midgley). In 1911, he achieved a first class in Literae Humaniores. On 26 August 1914, he was commissioned into the Post Office Rifles, British Army, as a second lieutenant. On 27 May 1915, he was promoted to lieutenant. During the early part of World War I, he was wounded twice. At the time of his capture, he held the rank of captain. He was held in Gütersloh and Krefeld, and spent his time learning languages. He was released at the end of hostilities and returned to Britain.

Between the 1930s and 1960s, Clark was the editor overseeing the Oxford History of England series and wrote Volume X: The Later Stuarts, 1660–1714 (1934), which was the first of the series to be published. His The Seventeenth Century appeared in 1929, and he wrote numerous other monographs. He was twice editor of the English Historical Review.

Clark delivered the Wiles Lectures in the Queen's University of Belfast in October 1956. They were published as War and Society in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge UP, 1958).

Honours He was knighted in the 1953 Coronation Honours List. Clark was elected Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 1936. He was a Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1953 he was elected an honorary fellow of Trinity College Dublin.