A. F. Pollard

A. F. Pollard (born Dec. 16, 1869, Ryde, Isle of Wight, Hampshire, Eng.—died Aug. 3, 1948, Milford-on-Sea, Hampshire) was an English historian who was the leading Tudor scholar of the early 20th century.

He was educated at Felsted School and at Jesus College, Oxford. In 1893 he was appointed to the editorial staff of the Dictionary of National Biography, to which he contributed about 500 entries, mainly on figures in the Tudor period. During that period, before the Dictionary was completed (through the first supplement), he completed two biographical volumes, England Under Protector Somerset (1900) and Henry VIII (1902).

Quitting the Dictionary of National Biography in 1901, he was elected to the chair of constitutional history at University College, London, in 1903; he held that position until his retirement in 1931. At the University of London he firmly established the history degree course and strove to promote postgraduate research. In 1906 he founded the Historical Association, which served teachers of history and which, from 1916, published the periodical History. The Institute of Historical Research, of which he was chairman (1921–31) and honorary director (1931–39), was largely his achievement.

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Pollard’s works on English history under the Tudor dynasty—including his volume The History of England from the Accession of Edward VI to the Death of Elizabeth (1547–1603) (1910) in “The Political History of England” series and his books on Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation (1904), The Elizabethans and the Empire (1921), and Wolsey (1929)—were models of careful and enduring work. On more modern subjects he wrote The Commonwealth at War (1917), A Short History of the Great War (1920), and Factors in American History (1925). He also wrote The Evolution of Parliament (1920; 2nd ed. 1926).