Maurice Beresford

Maurice Warwick Beresford, MA, FBA, (6 February 1920 – 15 December 2005) was an English economic historian and medieval archaeologist.

Academic career

Born in Sutton Coldfield, Beresford was educated at Bishop Vesey's Grammar School and Jesus College, Cambridge (MA). He was a conscientious objector in the Second World War, doing social work in Birmingham and London.

Beresford became a Lecturer at the University of Leeds in 1948 and was appointed Professor of Economic History at Leeds in 1959, a post he was to hold until his retirement in 1985 when he was given the title Emeritus Professor.^[2]

Beresford was elected Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 1985.^[3]

Research interests

In 1945, while working as a warden at an adult education centre, Beresford discovered the remains of the abandoned village of Bittesby.^[4] Thus began a lifelong interest in the subject. Together with John Hurst he conducted archaeological excavations at the deserted village of Wharram Percy. This work became an important impetus for medieval archaeology in Britain and Europe.

As an undergraduate, he wrote a paper on parkland in Sutton Coldfield, the beginning of his interest in the interaction between the physical landscape and documents such as maps.^[5] This interest led to his 1957 publication, History on the Ground.

Works

• Beresford, M.W. (1947). The Minute Book of a Leicestershire Enclosure. Leicester: Thornley Offprint. 
• Beresford, M.W. (1951). "The Lost Villages of Yorkshire, Parts I to IV". Yorkshire Archaeological Journal (Leeds: Yorkshire Archaeological Society) 23. 
• Beresford, M.W. (1951). The Lost Villages of Yorkshire, Parts I to IV Offprint from Yorkshire Archaeological Journal. Leeds: Yorkshire Archaeological Society. 
• Beresford, M.W. (1951). The Lost Villages of Medieval England. London: Royal Geographical Society. 
• Beresford, M.W. (1951). The Leeds Chamber of Commerce. With an Epilogue by S.J. Batchelder. Leeds: Leeds Chamber of Commerce. 
• Beresford, M.W. (1954). The Lost Villages of England. London: Lutterworth Press. 
• Beresford, M.W. (1961). Time and Place. Leeds: Leeds University Press. 
• Beresford, M.W. (1957). "The Common Informer, the Penal Statutes and Economic Regulation". Economic History Review. second (Glasgow: Economic History Society) 10 (2): 222–238. doi:10.2307/2590859. 
• Beresford, M.W. (1957). The Common Informer, the Penal Statutes and Economic Regulation (offprint from Economic History Review). Glasgow: Economic History Society. 
• Beresford, M.W. (1963). Lay Subsidies and Poll Taxes. Chichester: Phillimore. 
• Beresford, M.W. (1967). Leeds and its Region. Leeds: Leeds local executive committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. 
• Beresford, M.W. (1967). New Towns of the Middle Ages: Town Plantation in England, Wales and Gascony. London: Lutterworth Press. ISBN 0-7188-0601-8. 
• Beresford, M.W.; Hurst, J.G., eds. (1971). Deserted Medieval Villages: Studies. Woking: Lutterworth Press. ISBN 0-7188-1373-1. 
• Beresford, M.W. (1971). History on the Ground: Six Studies in Maps and Landscapes. London: Methuen & Co. ISBN 0-416-15130-2. 
• Beresford, M.W.; Finberg, H.P.R. (1973). English Medieval Boroughs: A Hand-List. Newton Abbott: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-5997-5. 
• Beresford, M.W. (1979). Medieval England: An Aerial Survey. Cambridge Air Surveys. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-21961-2. 
• Beresford, M.W. (1979). West Riding County Council 1889–1974 Historical Studies. The King's England Press. ISBN 0-86181-000-7. 
• Beresford, Maurice (1980). Walks Round Red Brick. Leeds University Press. ISBN 0-85316-124-0. 
• Beresford, M.W. (1988). East End, West End: Face of Leeds During Urbanisation, 1684–1842. Publications of the Thoresby Society. Leeds: Thoresby Society. ISBN 0-900741-23-6. 
• Beresford, M.W.; Hurst, J.G. (1990). Wharram Percy: Deserted Medieval Village. London: B.T. Batsford. ISBN 0-7134-6114-4. 
• Beresford, M.W. (2008). Leeds in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Miscellany). Leeds: Thoresby Society. ISBN 0-900741-66-X. 

References

Sources

• Cox, Harold (2007). "Maurice Beresford, 1920–2005". Rural History 18: 135–136. doi:10.1017/s0956793306002056. 
• Dyer, Christopher (22 December 2005). "Maurice Beresford, A historian on the trail of England's lost villages". The Guardian. 
• Glasscock, Robin (14 January 2006). "Professor Maurice Beresford, Economic historian and author of 'The Lost Villages of England' who pioneered 'landscape history'". The Independent. 
• "Professor Maurice Beresford, Historian whose painstaking work on deserted medieval communities led to his celebrated book the Lost Villages of England". The Times. 2 January 2006. 

External links

• Archival material relating to Maurice Beresford listed at the UK National Archives
• Works by or about Maurice Beresford in libraries (WorldCat catalog)