John Prest (1929 – 3 July 2018) was a British historian. He was born in

Tadworth Tadworth is a large suburban village in Surrey, England in the south-east of the Epsom Downs, part of the North Downs. It forms part of the Borough of Reigate and Banstead. At the 2011 census, Tadworth (and Walton-on-the-Hill) had a population o ...

, Surrey, to Dorothy Martin (a watercolourist) and Thomas Prest (a civil servant). He was educated at

Bradfield College Bradfield College, formally St Andrew's College, Bradfield, is a public school (English independent day and boarding school) for pupils aged 11–18, located in the small village of Bradfield in the English county of Berkshire. It is note ...

in Berkshire.Jeremy Burchardt,
John Prest obituary
, ''The Guardian'' (5 August 2018), retrieved 17 August 2019. He performed his national service in the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

before attending

King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the cit ...

in 1949. He gained a First and was made a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford in 1954, which he held until 1996.Tom Williams,
OBITUARY: Balliol College, Oxford, modern historian John Prest
, ''Oxford Mail'' (13 September 2018), retrieved 17 August 2019. Whilst at Balliol, Prest campaigned for the admittance of women into the College and also for more state-educated pupils to be educated there. After marrying Susan Davis in 1961, Prest moved to Walled Cottage in Wheatley, Oxfordshire. His 1981 book, ''The Garden of Eden'', was the result of his interest in

horticulture Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...

and it led to him being awarded a trusteeship of the

Oxford Botanic Garden The University of Oxford Botanic Garden is the oldest botanic garden in Great Britain and one of the oldest scientific gardens in the world. The garden was founded in 1621 as a physic garden growing plants for medicinal research. Today it cont ...

and becoming a founding member of the

National Botanic Garden of Wales The National Botanic Garden of Wales ( cy, Gardd Fotaneg Genedlaethol Cymru) is a botanical garden located in Llanarthney in the River Tywi valley, Carmarthenshire, Wales. The garden is both a visitor attraction and a centre for botanical rese ...

. His last book, ''The Lucky Martins'', was published in 2015 and was an account of his uncles' service in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. After his death, ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' said Prest would be "admired by future historians for his scholarship, humanity and intellectual independence".

Works

*''The Industrial Revolution in Coventry'' (1960). *''Lord John Russell'' (1972). *''Politics in the Age of Cobden'' (1977). *''The Garden of Eden: The Botanic Garden and the Re-creation of Paradise'' (1981). *''Liberty and Locality: Parliament, Permissive Legislation, and Ratepayers' Democracies in the Nineteenth Century'' (1990). *''The Illustrated History of Oxford University'' (1993). *''The Lucky Martins'' (2015).

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Prest, John 1929 births 2018 deaths English historians People educated at Bradfield College Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Fellows of Balliol College, Oxford People from Surrey (before 1965)