American Philosophical Society
Member History

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Residency
Resident (1)
Class
Subdivision
404a[X]
1Name:  Sir John Elliott
 Institution:  University of Oxford
 Year Elected:  1982
 Class:  4. Humanities
 Subdivision:  404a
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1930
 Death Date:  March 10, 2022
   
 
Sir John Elliott was born in Reading, England, on June 23, 1930. He was brought up in Surrey, where his father was headmaster of a preparatory school, and won a scholarship at the age of thirteen to Eton College. After military service, he went to Cambridge University in 1949 with a scholarship in modern languages but read history at Cambridge, where he won a First Class with distinction in both parts of the Historical Tripos. From 1952-55 he did research in the history of seventeenth-century Spain under the direction of Herbert Butterfield and was awarded a Ph. D. in 1955 for a thesis on the Catalan revolt of 1640, subsequently published in 1963 under the title of The Revolt of the Catalans. On the strength of this thesis he was also elected into a Research Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge and subsequently was appointed a teaching Fellow of the College and University Lecturer in History. In 1958 he married Oonah Sophia Butler. From 1968-73 he was Professor of History and Head of the History Department of King's College, University of London. In 1973 he and his wife moved to the United States when he was appointed a Professor in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. In 1990 he returned to England following his appointment as Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford, and he held the chair until his retirement in 1997. He is now an Honorary Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, to which the Regius chair is attached, and also of Trinity College, Cambridge. As a historian he has concentrated primarily on Early Modern Spain, Europe and the Americas. Among his publications, in addition to The Revolt of the Catalans, are Imperial Spain, 1469-1716 (1963); Europe Divided, 1559-1598 (1968); The Old World and the New, 1492-1650 (1970); A Palace for a King: The Buen Retiro and the Court of Philip IV, in collaboration with Jonathan Brown (1980); Richelieu and Olivares (1984); The Count-Duke of Olivares (1986); Spain and its World (1989). Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492-1830 was published in 2006. His honors and prizes include the Wolfson Prize for History (1986), the Prince of Asturias Prize for the Social Sciences (1996), the Balzan Prize for History, awarded by the International Balzan Foundation (1999) and the Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians (2007). Sir John holds several honorary doctorates, and in 1994 was knighted for his services to history. He also holds the Spanish orders of the Grand Cross of Alfonso el Sabio, and of Isabel la Católica.
 
Election Year
1982[X]