John Mason

John Mason (9 June 1920 – 31 October 2009) was a British historian and academic.

Life John Mason was born in Pembrokeshire, west Wales, on 9 June 1920. He studied at Bridgnorth Grammar School in Shropshire, and then at Jesus College, Oxford, where he was a scholar. His university studies were interrupted by the Second World War: he won his scholarship in 1937, but did not obtain his first-class degree in history until 1948. During the war, he served with the Manchester Regiment and then in the Indian Army, reaching the rank of Major and working in the Mechanical Transport Training Centre as well as interpreting Urdu. In 1950, he began his association with Christ Church, Oxford, at which he would spend the remainder of his academic career. His first appointment was as a research lecturer, to deal with the papers of Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury; He became a "Student" (the term used by Christ Church for Fellows of the college) in 1957, retiring in 1987, and was also college librarian (succeeding Nowell Myres) from 1962 until his retirement.

His particular field of interest was the Norman Conquest, and one of his articles on Roger of Montgomery (the first Earl of Shrewsbury) and his sons, written in 1963, was described in his obituary in The Times as "indispensable for understanding how the Norman Conquest worked on the ground", particularly in Mason's home county of Shropshire.