Jack Scarisbrick
British historian (1928–2026)
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John Joseph Scarisbrick (6 October 1928 – 28 February 2026) was a British historian who taught at the University of Warwick. He was also noted as the co-founder, with his wife Nuala Scarisbrick, of Life, a British anti-abortion charity founded in 1970.[1]
Life and career
Born in London on 6 October 1928, Scarisbrick was educated at The John Fisher School and later Christ's College, Cambridge, after spending two years in the Royal Air Force.[1] He specialised in Tudor history and his most critically acclaimed work is Henry VIII, first published in 1968.[2][3] His revisionism, particularly his book The Reformation and the English People[4] which argued that "English men and women did not want the Reformation and most of them were slow to accept it when it came",[5] formed part of a broader wave in Tudor historiography with other historians such as Eamon Duffy and helping to form the basis for the theory of the long reformation.[6]
Scarisbrick was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1969.[7] He was appointed MBE in 2015 for services to vulnerable people as founder of Zoe's Place, a hospice for children in Coventry.[8]
Scarisbrick died on 28 February 2026, at the age of 97.[9]
