View source for Christopher Hill (historian)

{{Short description|English historian}}
{{EngvarB|date=September 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2020}}
{{Infobox academic
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| name = Christopher Hill
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| image = John Edward Christopher Hill.jpg
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| birth_name = John Edward Christopher Hill
| birth_date = {{birth date|1912|2|6|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[York]], [[Yorkshire]], England
| death_date = {{death date and age|2003|2|23|1912|2|6|df=y}}
| death_place = [[Chipping Norton]], [[Oxfordshire]], England
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| nationality = British
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| boards = <!-- Board or similar positions extraneous to main occupation - e.g. "Editoral board of The Journal of Sociology" -->
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| spouse = Inez Waugh (''[[née]]'' Bartlett) <br /> Bridget Irene Mason (''née'' Sutton)
| children = Four
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| discipline = Historian
| sub_discipline = [[Early modern Britain|17th-century English history]]
| religion = <!-- Religion should be supported with a citation from a reliable source -->
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| education = [[Balliol College, Oxford]]
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| notable_students = [[Brian Manning (historian)|Brian Manning]]<br/>[[Partha Sarathi Gupta]]<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/1999/sep/13/guardianobituaries3 |title=Partha Sarathi Gupta |last=Partha Sarathi Gupta |website=[[TheGuardian.com]] |date=13 September 1999 |access-date=6 October 2019}}</ref>
| main_interests = 
| workplaces = [[All Souls College, Oxford]] <br /> [[University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire]] <br /> [[Balliol College, Oxford]] <br /> [[Open University]]
| notable_works = 
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| influenced = [[Ervand Abrahamian]]<ref>{{citation |title=Iran's Past and Present: Why has the History of Iran's Left been Erased? |author=Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi |url=https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/04/iran-left-tudeh-khomeini-nationalization-orientalism-oil-imperialism/ |date=20 April 2017 |access-date=9 December 2017 |work=[[Jacobin (magazine)|Jacobin]]}}</ref>
| awards = 
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}}

'''John Edward Christopher Hill''' (6 February 1912 – 23 February 2003) was an English [[Marxist]] [[historian]] and academic, specialising in [[Early modern Britain|17th-century English history]]. From 1965 to 1978 he was [[Master (college)|Master]] of [[Balliol College, Oxford]].

==Early life and education==
Christopher Hill was born on 6 February 1912, [[Bishopthorpe Road]], [[York]], to Edward Harold Hill and Janet Augusta (''[[née]]'' Dickinson). His father was a solicitor and the family were devout [[Methodists]]. He attended [[St Peter's School, York]].<ref name="Oxford DNB">{{cite ODNB |title=Hill, (John Edward) Christopher (1912–2003) |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/89437 |access-date=29 June 2012 |date=January 2007|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/89437 }}</ref> At the age of 16, he sat his entrance examination at [[Balliol College, Oxford]]. The two history tutors who marked his papers recognised his ability and offered him a place in order to forestall any chance he might go to the [[University of Cambridge]].<ref name="Guardian obit">{{cite news |title=Obituary: Christopher Hill |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/feb/26/guardianobituaries.obituaries |newspaper=The Guardian |access-date=29 June 2012 |date=26 February 2003}}</ref> In 1931 Hill took a prolonged holiday in [[Freiburg im Breisgau|Freiburg]], Germany, where he witnessed the rise of the [[Nazi Party]], later saying that it contributed significantly to the [[Political radicalism|radicalisation]] of his politics. 

He [[matriculated]] at Balliol College in 1931. In the following year he won the [[Lothian Prize]],<ref name="Guardian obit" /> and he graduated with a [[First Class Honours#First-class honours|first-class]] Bachelor of Arts degree in [[modern history]] in 1934. Whilst at Balliol, Hill became a committed [[Marxist]] and joined the [[Communist Party of Great Britain]] in the year he graduated.<ref name="Oxford DNB" /> 

Hill has been accused of being a spy for the [[Soviet Union]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=1970-01-01 |title=Christopher Andrew and the Strange Case of Roger Hollis - Quadrant Online |url=https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2010/04/christopher-andrew-and-the-strange-case-of-roger-hollis/ |access-date=2023-09-28 |website=quadrant.org.au |language=en-AU}}</ref> Several academics, including [[Eric Hobsbawm]], defended Hill.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Bowcott |first=Owen |date=2003-03-06 |title=Outcry as historian labelled a Soviet spy |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/mar/06/books.politics |access-date=2024-05-07 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> Further, declassified MI5 documents are reported to have found no evidence of him being a spy.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=2014-10-24 |title=How MI5 spent years watching the wrong Oxbridge academics |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/revealed-how-mi5-watched-the-wrong-marxist-oxbridge-academics-christopher-hill-and-eric-hobsbawn-9814170.html |access-date=2024-05-07 |website=The Independent |language=en}}</ref>

==Early academic career==
After graduating he became a [[Fellow]] of [[All Souls College]]. In 1935 he undertook a ten-month trip to Moscow, [[Soviet Union]]. There he became fluent in Russian and studied Soviet historical scholarship, particularly that relating to Britain.<ref name="Oxford DNB" /> After returning to England in 1936 he accepted a teaching position as an [[Lecturer|assistant lecturer]] at the [[Cardiff University|University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire]] in Cardiff. During his time there he attempted to join the [[International Brigade]] and fight in the [[Spanish Civil War]], but was rejected.<ref name="Guardian obit" /> Instead he was active in helping [[Basque people|Basque]] [[refugees]] displaced by the war.<ref name="Oxford DNB" /> After two years in Cardiff he returned to Balliol College in 1938 as a Fellow and [[Tutor (education)|tutor]] in history.<ref name="Oxford DNB" />

==War service==
Following the outbreak of the [[Second World War]], he joined the [[British Army]], initially as a [[Private (rank)|private]] in the [[Royal Military Police|Field Security Police]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Saville |first1=John |title=The Politics of Continuity: British Foreign Policy and the Labour Government, 1945-46 |date=1993 |publisher=Verso |location=London |isbn=0860914569 |page=214}}</ref> He was commissioned as a [[Second lieutenant#United Kingdom and Commonwealth|second lieutenant]] in the [[Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry]] on 2 November 1940 with the [[service number]] 156590.<ref name="LG 15 November 1940">{{London Gazette |issue=34995 |date=15 November 1940 |pages=6621–6625 |supp=y}}</ref> At around this time Hill started to publish his articles and reviews about [[17th-century]] [[English history]]. On 19 October 1941 he was transferred to the [[Intelligence Corps (United Kingdom)|Intelligence Corps]].<ref name="LG 25 November 1941">{{London Gazette |issue=35360 |date=25 November 1941 |page=6830 |supp=y}}</ref> He was seconded to the [[Foreign Office]] from 1943 until the war ended.<ref name="Guardian obit" />

==Later academic career and politics==
Hill returned to [[Oxford University]] after the war to continue his academic work. In 1946 he and other [[Marxist historians]] formed the [[Communist Party Historians Group]]. In 1949 he applied for the chair of History at the new [[Keele University]], but was turned down because of his Communist Party affiliations.<ref name="Oxford DNB" /> In 1952 he helped to create the [[academic journal|journal]] ''[[Past & Present (journal)|Past and Present]]''.<ref name="Oxford DNB" />

Hill was becoming discontented with the lack of democracy in the Communist Party.<ref name="Guardian obit" /> However, he stayed in the party after the [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956|Soviet invasion of Hungary]] in 1956. He left in the spring of 1957 after one of his reports to the party congress was rejected.<ref name="Oxford DNB" />

After 1956 Hill's academic career ascended to new heights. His studies in 17th-century English history were widely acknowledged and recognised. His first academic book, ''Economic Problems of the Church from Archbishop Whitgift to the Long Parliament'',<ref name="Oxford DNB" /> appeared in 1956. Like many of his later books, it was based on his study of printed sources accessible in the [[Bodleian Library]] and on secondary works produced by other academic historians, rather than on research in the surviving archives. In 1965 Hill was elected [[Master (college)|Master of Balliol College]].<ref name="Oxford DNB" /> He held the post from 1965 to 1978, when he retired (he was succeeded by [[Anthony Kenny]]). Among his students at Balliol was [[Brian Manning (historian)|Brian Manning]], who went on to  do historical research they developed the field’s understanding of the English Revolution. At Oxford, Hill acted as Senior Member of the exclusive [[Stubbs Society]].

Many of Hill's most notable studies focused on 17th-century English history. His books include ''Puritanism and Revolution'' (1958), ''Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution'' (1965 and revised in 1996), ''The Century of Revolution'' (1961), ''Anti-Christ in 17th-century England'' (1971) and ''The World Turned Upside Down'' (1972).

Hill retired from Balliol in 1978, when he took up a full-time appointment for two years at the [[Open University]]. He continued to lecture from his home at [[Sibford Ferris]], Oxfordshire.

In Hill's later years he lived with [[Alzheimer's disease]] and required constant care.<ref name="Bridget Oxford DNB" /> He died in a [[nursing home]] in [[Chipping Norton]], Oxfordshire, on 23 February 2003.<ref name="Oxford DNB" />

==Personal life==
Hill married Inez Waugh (''née'' Bartlett) on 17 January 1944. Inez Hill, then 23, was the  daughter of an Army officer, Gordon Bartlett, and the ex-wife of Ian Anthony Waugh. The Hills' marriage broke down after ten years. Their only child, their daughter, Fanny, drowned while holidaying in Spain in 1986.<ref name="Oxford DNB" />

Hill's second wife was [[Bridget Hill (historian)|Bridget Irene Mason]] (''née'' Sutton),<ref name="Bridget Oxford DNB">{{cite ODNB |title=Hill [née Sutton], Bridget Irene (1922–2002) |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/77170 |access-date=30 June 2012 |date=January 2006|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/77170 }}</ref> whom he married on 2 January 1956. She was the ex-wife of Stephen Mason, a fellow Communist and historian. Their daughter Kate died in a car accident in 1957. They had two other children: Andrew (born 1958) and Dinah (born 1960).<ref name="Oxford DNB" />

Hill, along with Hobsbawm, was spied on by [[MI5]] for decades. MI5 found that [[Abraham Lazarus]] confessed to an affair with Hill's first wife, Inez, in 1948.<ref name=":0" />

==Selected works==
*''[https://archive.org/details/englishrevolution1640 The English Revolution, 1640]'' (1940, 3rd ed. 1955), {{ISBN|0-85315-044-3}} ([http://www.marxists.org/archive/hill-christopher/english-revolution/ On-line text] at [[marxists.org]])
*''[https://archive.org/details/leninrussianrevolution Lenin and the Russian Revolution]'' (1947), {{ISBN|0-14-013535-9}} (1971, 1972, 1993 reprints)
*''Economic Problems of the Church: From Archbishop Whitgift to the Long Parliament'' (1956), {{ISBN|0-586-03528-1}} (1971 reprint)
*''Puritanism and Revolution: Studies in Interpretation of the English Revolution of the 17th Century'' (1958), {{ISBN|0-7126-6722-9}} (2001 reprint)
*''The Century of Revolution, 1603–1714'' (1961, 2nd. ed. 1980), {{ISBN|0-17-712002-9}}
*''Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England'' (1964), {{ISBN|0-7126-6816-0}} (2003 reprint)
*''Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution'' (1965, rev. 1997), {{ISBN|0-19-820668-2}}
*''Reformation to Industrial Revolution: A Social and Economic History of Britain, 1530–1780'' (1967, rev. ed. 1969), {{ISBN|0-14-020897-6}}
*''[[God's Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution]]'' (1970), {{ISBN|0-297-00043-8}}
*''Antichrist in Seventeenth-Century England'' (1971, rev. ed. 1990), {{ISBN|0-86091-997-8}}
*''[[The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution]]'' (1972), {{ISBN|0-85117-025-0}}
*''Change and Continuity in Seventeenth-Century England'' (1974, rev. ed. 1991), {{ISBN|0-300-05044-5}}
*''Milton and the English Revolution'' (1977), {{ISBN|0-571-10198-4}}
* (with [[William M. Lamont]] and [[Barry Reay]]) ''The World of the Muggletonians'' (1983), {{ISBN|0-85117-226-1}}
*''The Experience of Defeat: Milton and Some Contemporaries'' (1984), {{ISBN|0-571-13237-5}}
*''The Collected Essays of Christopher Hill'' (3 vols.)
*#''Writing and Revolution in 17th Century England'' (1985), {{ISBN|0-7108-0565-9}}
*#''Religion and Politics in 17th Century England'' (1986), {{ISBN|0-7108-0507-1}}
*#''People and Ideas in 17th Century England'' (1986), {{ISBN|0-7108-0512-8}}
*''A Turbulent, Seditious, and Factious People: John Bunyan and His Church, 1628–1688'' (1988), {{ISBN|0-19-812818-5}}—published in the United States as ''A Tinker and a Poor Man: John Bunyan and His Church, 1628-1688'' (1989), {{ISBN|0-394-57242-4}}
*''A Nation of Change and Novelty: Radical Politics, Religion and Literature in Seventeenth-Century England'' (1990), {{ISBN|0-415-04833-8}}
*''The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution'' (1992), {{ISBN|0-7139-9078-3}}
*''Liberty Against The Law: Some Seventeenth-Century Controversies'' (1996), {{ISBN|0-14-024033-0}}

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==References==
*Adamo, Pietro, "Christopher Hill e la rivoluzione inglese: itinerario di uno storico", pp.&nbsp;129–158 from ''Societá e Storia'', volume 13, 1990.
*[[J. C. D. Clark|Clark, J. C. D.]], ''Revolution and Rebellion: State and Society in England in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
*Davis, J. C., ''Myth and History: the Ranters and the Historians'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
*Eley, Geoff and Hunt, William (editors), ''Reviving the English Revolution: Reflections and Elaborations on the Work of Christopher Hill'', London: Verso, 1988.
*Fulbrook, Mary, "The English Revolution and the Revisionist Revolt", pp.&nbsp;249–264 from ''Social History'', volume 7, 1982.
*[[J. H. Hexter|Hexter, J. H.]], "The Burden of Proof", ''Times Literary Supplement'', 24 October 1975.
*[[Hobsbawm, Eric]], "'The Historians Group' of the Communist Party" from ''Rebels and Their Causes: Essays in Honor of A. L. Morton'', edited by Maurice Cornforth, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1978.
*Kaye, Harvey J., ''The British Marxist Historians: an introductory analysis'', Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984.
*[[John Morrill (historian)|Morrill, John]], "Christopher Hill", pp.&nbsp;28–29 from ''History Today'' volume 53, issue 6, June 2003.
*[[Pennington, D. H.]] and Thomas, Keith (editors), ''Puritans and Revolutionaries: essays in seventeenth-century history presented to Christopher Hill'', Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.
*Pennington, Donald, "John Edward Christopher Hill", in ''British Academy, Proceedings of the British Academy: Volume 130: Biographical Memoirs of Fellows, IV'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp.&nbsp;23–49.
*Richardson, R. C., ''The Debate on the English Revolution Revisited'', London: Methuen, 1977.
*[[Raphael Samuel|Samuel, Raphael]] "British Marxist Historians, 1880–1980", pp.&nbsp;21–96 from ''New Left Review'', volume 120, March–April 1980.
*Schwarz, Bill, "'The People' in History: the Communist Party Historians' Group, 1946–56" from ''Making Histories: Studies in History-Writing and Politics'', edited by Richard Johnson, London: Hutchinson, 1982.
*Underdown, David, "Radicals in Defeat", ''New York Review of Books'', 28 March 1985.

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
*[https://www.marxists.org/archive/hill-christopher/index.htm Christopher Hill Archive] at [[marxists.org]] 
*[http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/918/cromwell.html "Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution – In Honor of Christopher Hill 1912–2003"], ''Workers Vanguard'' (2003)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110523092242/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article1112725.ece "Christopher Hill: Obituary"], ''[[The Times]]'', 26 February 2003
* Hunt, Tristram. [https://www.theguardian.com/education/2003/mar/05/highereducation.news "Back When It Mattered"], ''[[The Guardian]]'', 5 March 2003
* [[Brian Manning (historian)|Manning, Brian]]. [http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj99/manning.htm "The Legacy of Christopher Hill"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160128160229/http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj99/manning.htm |date=28 January 2016 }}, ''International Socialism'' (2003)

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hill, Christopher}}
[[Category:1912 births]]
[[Category:2003 deaths]]
[[Category:Academics of Cardiff University]]
[[Category:Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford]]
[[Category:British Army personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:English communists]]
[[Category:Communist Party of Great Britain members]]
[[Category:Historians of Puritanism]]
[[Category:Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford]]
[[Category:British Marxist historians]]
[[Category:Marxist humanists]]
[[Category:Masters of Balliol College, Oxford]]
[[Category:People educated at St Peter's School, York]]
[[Category:Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry officers]]
[[Category:Intelligence Corps officers]]
[[Category:Academics from York]]
[[Category:English Marxist writers]]
[[Category:20th-century English historians]]
[[Category:Members of the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin]]
[[Category:Royal Military Police soldiers]]
[[Category:Military personnel from York]]
[[Category:Foreign Office personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:Communist Party Historians Group members]]
[[Category:Historians of the University of Oxford]]