David Harris Willson
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David Harris Willson (May 18, 1901 – December 11, 1973) was an American historian and professor who specialized in the history of 17th-century England.


Early life and education

Willson's progenitors bearing the Willson name first arrived from England in 1638, settling in Dedham, Massachusetts. Another English progenitor,
John Harris, Sr. John Harris Sr. (1673 – December 1748) was an American businessman who emigrated from Britain to America late in the 17th century. Harris would later settle and establish Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which was later named in his honor. Biograp ...
, founded Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. David Harris Willson's parents were Thomas Harris Willson and Amelia Shryrock Willson. He was born in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
. Willson attended Haddonfield Friends School in
Haddonfield, New Jersey :''Not the fictional Illinois town from the Halloween film series.'' Haddonfield is a borough located in Camden County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough had a total population of 11,593,
, then Friends Select School in Philadelphia. He attended Haverford College in Philadelphia, graduating in 1921. While at Haverford he was selected for a fellowship at
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
in
Ithaca, New York Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named ...
, where he pursued a Ph.D. in English History. He received a 1923 prize which allowed him to complete his research in England, and while in England he was recommended for an instructor position at the
University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...
. He moved to Minneapolis in September 1924 to begin that assignment, and his Ph.D. (from Cornell) was granted in 1925.


Teaching career

Willson remained at the University of Minnesota until 1969. During that time he was also active in teaching and historical research. He taught summer school at the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
in 1931 and at Duke University in 1936. He was secretary of the Modern European History section of the American Historical Association from 1941 until 1946. He served on the Robert Livingston Schuyler Prize Committee. He served on the advisory board of the Yale Parliamentary Diaries Project. He sat on the program committee of the Midwest Conference on British Studies from 1959 until 1962, and was president of that conference from 1965 until 1967. Willson was a Visiting Professor at the
University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
in 1966 and 1967.


Writing career

Willson's first book was ''The Parliamentary Diary of Robert Bowyer, 1606-1607'', published by University of Minnesota Press in 1931. His second book was ''Privy Councillors in the House of Commons, 1604-1629'', published by University of Minnesota Press in 1940. His third book was ''King James VI and I'', published by Cope, Hall in 1956. His magnum opus, co-authored with Stuart E. Prall, is ''A History of England'', which was first published in 1967 by Holt and has undergone several subsequent editions. Willson wrote numerous articles and reviews in US and English journals.


Academic and career honors

Willson received the Laura Messenger Prize in History (1923), which allowed him to travel to England for research on his doctoral dissertation. He received two Guggenheim Fellowships (1941-1943 and 1948-1949). In a September 1994 interview, American historian Stanford Lehmberg stated: :David Harris Willson was probably ''the'' most distinguished historian of Seventeenth-Century England and the most distinguished Stuart historian of his generation.


Personal life

Willson met Lillian Kemp Malone at the University of Minnesota, where she was pursuing an MA degree in French. She graduated in 1927 and began teaching at a private school for girls; she and Willson were married in September 1928. They had one child, son John Harris Willson. David Harris Willson died in 1973 in St. Paul, Minnesota.Information supplied by John Harris Willson (September 4, 2009).


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Willson, David Harris American non-fiction writers 1901 births Writers from Philadelphia 1973 deaths Haverford College alumni Cornell University alumni University of Minnesota faculty 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers Historians from Pennsylvania 20th-century American male writers