Arthur Aspinall, CVO (11 July 1901 – 2 May 1972) was a British

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

Early life

He was born in the

West Riding The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions have ...

and educated at

Manchester University , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

, where he studied history.'Prof A. Aspinall', ''The Times'' (6 May 1972), p. 16.

Academic career

He was appointed lecturer in history at the University of Rangoon in 1925, which he held until 1931. Here, he authored a book on

Lord Cornwallis Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, (31 December 1738 – 5 October 1805), styled Viscount Brome between 1753 and 1762 and known as the Earl Cornwallis between 1762 and 1792, was a British Army general and official. In the United S ...

's career

in India IN, In or in may refer to: Places * India (country code IN) * Indiana, United States (postal code IN) * Ingolstadt, Germany (license plate code IN) * In, Russia, a town in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast Businesses and organizations * Indepen ...

, ''Cornwallis in Bengal''. His first book, ''Lord Brougham and the Whig Party'' (1927), grew out of his doctoral thesis. It was praised as "thorough and masterly in treatment" by Lucy M. Brown and I. R. Christie. In 1931 Aspinall became lecturer of history at

Reading University The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

and in 1947 he succeeded

Frank Stenton Sir Frank Merry Stenton, FBA (17 May 1880 – 15 September 1967) was an English historian of Anglo-Saxon England, and president of the Royal Historical Society (1937–1945). The son of Henry Stenton of Southwell, Nottinghamshire, he was edu ...

to become professor of modern history. He was then professor of history from 1963 until his retirement in 1965. He edited the correspondence of

George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

and

George IV George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from the death of his father, King George III, on 29 January 1820, until his own death ten y ...

: according to ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'', these volumes "stand as a permanent memorial to his astonishing industry and meticulous scholarship".

Personal life

Aspinall was married to Gladys Shaw from 1931 until her death in 1965. In 1968 he married Beryl Johnson.

Assessment

After his death, ''The Times'' said:

Aspinall was an exact scholar, with an unrivalled knowledge of the primary source materials for his period, the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries of British political history. He developed his academic life to the publication of impeccable edited texts of the major correspondence of the period, so that every historian working that field, now and in the future, will be heavily in his debt.

In his biography of George IV, E. A. Smith said: "My principal academic debt must be to the late Arthur Aspinall...who gave me endless encouragement. ... Doubtless he would have disapproved of some of my ideas about George IV but, such as it is, I offer my present work as a small tribute to his memory".

Works

*''Lord Brougham and the Whig Party'' (1927). *''Cornwallis in Bengal'' (1931). *''The Formation of Canning's Ministry, February to August, 1827'' (1937). *(editor), ''The Letters of King George IV, 1812–30'' (1938). *(editor), ''The Correspondence of Charles Arbuthnot'' (1941) *(editor), ''Diary of Henry Hobhouse, 1820–47'' (1947). *''Politics and the Press, 1780–1850'' (1947). *''The Early English Trade Unions'' (1949). *(editor), ''Mrs. Jordan and her family: being the unpublished correspondence of Mrs. Jordan and the Duke of Clarence, later William IV'' (1951). *(editor), ''Three Early Nineteenth Century Diaries'' (1952). *(editor), ''The Letters of King George IV with The Later Correspondence of George III'' (five volumes, 1962–70). *(editor), ''The Correspondence of George, Prince of Wales, 1770–1810'' (eight volumes, 1963–71).

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aspinall, Arthur 1901 births 1972 deaths 20th-century English historians Alumni of the University of Manchester Academics of the University of Reading People from the West Riding of Yorkshire (before 1974) Academic staff of the University of Yangon