Gerald Aylmer | |
|---|---|
| Born | Gerald Edward Aylmer 30 April 1926 |
| Died | 17 December 2000(2000-12-17) (aged 74) |
| Education | Balliol College, Oxford |
| Occupation | Historian |
| Parent(s) | Edward Arthur Aylmer, Phoebe Evans |
Gerald Edward Aylmer,FRHistS FBA (30 April 1926,Greete,Shropshire – 17 December 2000,Oxford) was anEnglishhistorian of 17th centuryEngland.
Gerald Aylmer was the only child ofEdward Arthur Aylmer, from anAnglo-Irish naval family, and Phoebe Evans. A great-uncle wasLord Desborough. Educated atBeaudesert Park School andWinchester College, he went toBalliol College, Oxford for a term before volunteering for theNavy, where he was a shipmate ofGeorge Melly. Returning to Balliol, he was tutored byChristopher Hill. He graduated in 1950, spent a year atPrinceton University as aJane Eliza Procter Visiting Fellow, and completed his thesis, 'Studies on the Institutions and Personnel of English Central Administration, 1625–42' (1954) as a Junior Research Fellow at Balliol. The thesis, in two volumes, was 1208 pages long: the Modern History Board subsequently introduced a word-limit.)
In 1954, Alymer went toManchester University as an assistant lecturer, and in the following year married Ursula Nixon. Appointed lecturer at Manchester in 1962, he was then invited, aged 36, to become the first Professor ofHistory atUniversity of York. In 1979, he returned toOxford asMaster ofSt Peter's College, presiding over an improvement in academic performance at the college, increased endowment and building extensions before retiring in 1991. He remained an active publisher for the remaining nine years of his life before dying inhospital following what appeared to be routinesurgery.
In 1993 Aylmer was honoured with afestschrift edited by his long-time colleaguesJohn Morrill andPaul Slack and his former doctoral studentDaniel Woolf.
Aylmer was on the editorial board of theHistory of Parliament Trust from 1968 to 1998, and chaired the board from 1989 to 1997. A Commissioner for Historical Manuscripts from 1978, he chaired the commission from 1989 to 1989. He was electedFellow of the British Academy in 1976, and President of theRoyal Historical Society between 1984 and 1988.
Aylmer's most substantial historical contribution was his trilogy on seventeenth-century administration before, during and after theCivil War. Alymer brought aprosopographical method to the study of 17th century bureaucracy, as well as an interest in the political sociology of bureaucracy inMax Weber,James Burnham andMilovan Djilas. The first volume – a careful statistical study of Charles I's officials – effectively rebuttedHugh Trevor-Roper's attribution of the rise of the gentry to the profits of royal office, and characterisation of the Civil War as a conflict between 'rising' and 'declining' gentry. The second volume showed that Interregnum reforms had real, if not absolute, effects; the third, published posthumously, treated the partial return to older practices under Charles II. In this final volume, Aylmer described himself as "an oldWhig (and one with some residualLeveller leanings too)".[1]
Aylmer's publications up to 1990 are listed in his Festschrift.[2]
| Academic offices | ||
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| Preceded by | President of the Royal Historical Society 1985–1989 | Succeeded by |
