John Vincent

John Russell Vincent (20 December 1937 – 18 March 2021) was a British historian and newspaper columnist.

Early life and education Born in Stockport, Vincent was educated at Bedales School. He studied history at Christ's College, Cambridge, under J.H. Plumb, and in 1959 began studying for a PhD on mid-Victorian Liberalism under the supervision of George Kitson Clark. His thesis was published in 1966 as The Formation of the British Liberal Party, 1857–1868.

Academic career Vincent taught at Cambridge from 1967 until 1970, when he joined the University of Bristol as Professor of Modern History. From 1984 he was Professor of History, until his retirement in 2002 when he became Emeritus Professor. As a result he took two-terms' unpaid leave.

Publications In his book on historiography, An Intelligent Person's Guide to History, Vincent observed that if we went solely by the documentary standards most prized by modern historians nothing would be more historically certain than the existence of actual witches in the Middle Ages, given the large volume of solemnly-sworn testimony available in original documents. In 1995, Oxford University Press refused at the last minute to publish the book, having commissioned and overseen much of its writing. A reader's report had described it as being "a sad and bitter diatribe" with a "general absence of the appreciation of the project of social history". Peter Oborne later wrote that it is "one of the most brilliant works of British historiography since the war".

Death Vincent died on 9 March 2021, aged 83.