James Pounder Whitney (30 November 1857,

Marsden, West Yorkshire Marsden is a large village in the Colne Valley, in the metropolitan borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England. It is in the South Pennines close to the Peak District which lies to the south. The village is west of Huddersfield at the conflu ...

– 17 June 1939,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

) was a British

ecclesiastical historian Church history or ecclesiastical history as an academic discipline studies the history of Christianity and the way the Christian Church has developed since its inception. Henry Melvill Gwatkin defined church history as "the spiritual side of the ...

. Educated at

King James's Grammar School, Almondbury King James's School is a coeducational secondary school located in Almondbury in the English county of West Yorkshire. History King James's Grammar School was founded as chantry school in 1547 and received its name and a royal charter in 1608 ...

and

Owens College, Manchester The Victoria University of Manchester, usually referred to as simply the University of Manchester, was a university in Manchester, England. It was founded in 1851 as Owens College. In 1880, the college joined the federal Victoria University. A ...

, he was a foundation scholar at

King's College, Cambridge King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a List of colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college lies beside the River Cam and faces ...

, gaining firsts in the mathematics and history

tripos TRIPOS (''TRIvial Portable Operating System'') is a computer operating system. Development started in 1976 at the Computer Laboratory of Cambridge University and it was headed by Dr. Martin Richards. The first version appeared in January 1978 a ...

es in 1881. A fellow of King's College, he was ordained an

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

in 1895. After various clerical and teaching appointment, he was professor of ecclesiastical history at

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

from 1908 to 1918. He was

Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History The Dixie Professorship of Ecclesiastical History is one of the senior professorships in history at the University of Cambridge. Lord Mayor of London in the 16th century, Sir Wolstan Dixie, left funds to found both scholarships and fellowships at ...

at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

from 1919 to 1939. He was joint editor of ''The Cambridge Medieval History'' from 1907 to 1922.''P.A. Linehan'', ‘The making of the Cambridge Medieval History’, ''Speculum'' 57 (1982), 463–494.

Works

* ''The higher criticism: A sermon, together with an open letter to His Lordship the Bishop-Coadjutor of Montreal with reference to his Provincial Synod sermon'' (1904) * ''The Reformation: Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A. D. 1503 to A. D. 1648'' (1907), later editions as ''History of the Reformation'' * ''Pope Gregory VII and the Hildebrandine ideal'' (1910)
''The Cambridge Medieval History: Volume II: The Rise Of The Saracens And The Foundation Of The Western Empire''
(1913) editor with

J. B. Bury John Bagnell Bury (; 16 October 1861 – 1 June 1927) was an Anglo-Irish historian, classical scholar, Medieval Roman historian and philologist. He objected to the label " Byzantinist" explicitly in the preface to the 1889 edition of his ''La ...

and

Henry Melvill Gwatkin Henry Melvill Gwatkin (30 July 1844 – 14 November 1916) was an English theologian and church historian. Gwatkin was born at Barrow-on-Soar, Leicestershire, the youngest son of the Rev. Richard Gwatkin,"Gwatkin, Henry Melvill" in ''Alumni ...

* ''Hildebrandine Essays'' (1932) * ''Reformation Essays'' (1939)

References

* C. W. Previté-Orton
‘Whitney, James Pounder (1857–1939)’
rev. C. N. L. Brooke, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004 1857 births 1939 deaths 20th-century British historians Academics from Yorkshire Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Fellows of King's College, Cambridge Academics of King's College London People educated at King James's School, Almondbury Dixie Professors of Ecclesiastical History People from Marsden, West Yorkshire {{UK-historian-stub