George Kitson Clark

George Sidney Roberts Kitson Clark (1900-1975) was an English historian, a specialist in the nineteenth century.

Historian

He is known as a revisionist historian of the Repeal of the Corn Laws [G. S. R. Kitson Clark, "The Electorate and the Repeal of the Corn Laws", Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th Ser., Vol. 1, 1951 (1951), pp. 109-126.] [G. Kitson Clark, "Hunger and Politics in 1842", The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 25, No. 4 (December 1953), pp. 355-374.] [E. Sreedharan, "A Textbook of Historiography, 500 B.C. to A.D. 2000" (2004), p. 249.] . G. D. H. Cole identified a "Kitson Clark" school of historians revising the assessment of the Anti-Corn Law League and the Chartists [Paul A. Pickering, Alex Tyrrell, "The People's Bread: A History of the Anti-Corn Law League" (2000), p. 4.] .

He was educated at Shrewsbury School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He lived the life of a bachelor don as Fellow of Trinity, from 1922 to 1975. He was Reader in Constitutional History from 1954 to 1967. [Maurice Cowling, "Religion and Public Doctrine in Modern England" (1980), p. 197.] .

Jack Plumb, who disliked Kitson Clark, describes him as a reformer of the History Tripos [J. H. Plumb, "The Making of An Historian" I, p. 164-5.] , and obstacle to Lewis Namier [Plumb, pp. 98-9.] , with various swipes .

Family

He was the son of the engineer Edwin Kitson Clark, and brother of Mary Kitson Clark. [ [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20050318/ai_n14588857 Obituary, Mary Kitson Clark] ]

Works

*"Guide for Research Students Working on Historical Subjects" (1958)
*"Making of Victorian England" (1962)
*"Peel and the Conservative Party" (1964)
*"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

Reference

*Robert Robson (editor) (1967), "Ideas and Institutions of Victorian Britain: Essays in honour of George Kitson Clark"

Notes