John Prest

For the English cricketer, see John Prest (cricketer).

John Prest (18 September 1928 – 3 July 2018) was a British historian.

He was born in Tadworth, Surrey, to Dorothy Martin (a watercolourist) and Thomas Prest (a civil servant). He was educated at Bradfield College in Berkshire.[1] He performed his national service in the Royal Air Force before attending King's College, Cambridge in 1949.[1] He gained a First and was made a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford in 1954, which he held until 1996.[1][2]

Whilst at Balliol, Prest campaigned for the admittance of women into the College and also for more state-educated pupils to be educated there.[2] After marrying Susan Davis in 1961, Prest moved to Walled Cottage in Wheatley, Oxfordshire.[1] His 1981 book, The Garden of Eden, was the result of his interest in horticulture and it led to him being awarded a trusteeship of the Oxford Botanic Garden and becoming a founding member of the National Botanic Garden of Wales.[1]

His last book, The Lucky Martins, was published in 2015 and was an account of his uncles' service in the First World War.[1] After his death, The Guardian said Prest would be "admired by future historians for his scholarship, humanity and intellectual independence".[1]

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

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Jeremy Burchardt, 'John Prest obituary', The Guardian (5 August 2018), retrieved 17 August 2019.
  2. ^ a b Tom Williams, 'OBITUARY: Balliol College, Oxford, modern historian John Prest', Oxford Mail (13 September 2018), retrieved 17 August 2019.