The Times/1926/Obituary/Charles Lethbridge Kingsford

Mr. C. L. Kingsford

Mr. Charles Lethbridge Kingsford who died on Saturday at the age of 63, was known as a scholarly historian, the author of works of no small interest and value.

The third son of the Rev. Sampson Kingsford, formerly Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and vicar of St. Hilary, Cornwall, he was born at Ludlow on December 25, 1862. He was sent to Rossall, and went up to St. John's College, Oxford, as a scholar, and obtained honours in the classical schools and in modern history. In 1888 he was awarded the Arnold prize for an essay on "The Reformation in France," and in the following year he joined the editorial staff of the "Dictionary of National Biography." In 1890 he was appointed an examiner in the Education Department, and was an assistant secretary from 1905 to 1912. During the war he was private secretary to Sir A. Boscawen at the Ministry of Pensions. Mr. Kingsford was vice-president of the Society of Antiquaries, 1920-3, Ford Lecturer on English History at Oxford, 1923-4, and a vice-president of the Royal Historical Society and the London Topographical Society. In 1924 he was elected a fellow of the British Academy.

Mr. Kingsford became recognized as our greatest modern authority on the history of the late 15th century. With the late Mr. T. A. Archer he published in 1894 a book on the Crusades, which was welcomed by serious students. His edition of Stow's "Survey" in 1908 increased his reputation, which was established by his "English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century" and his "Prejudice and Promise in Fifteenth Century England." For the Royal Historical Society he wrote on Sir Otho de Grandison, and for the British Society of Franciscan Studies a volume on the Grey Friars of London. His latest work, which appeared at the beginning of this year, was "The Early History of Piccadilly, Leicester-square, Soho, and their Neighbourhood," which was based on a plan drawn in 1585 and published by the London Topographical Society. To the "Heroes of the Nations" series he contributed the volume on Henry V.; he wrote the histories of the Royal Warwickshire and the Middlesex Regiments; and he edited the first volume on the manuscripts of Lord De L'isle and Dudley in the publications of the Historical MSS. commission. To these and other works he added numerous contributions to the "Dictionary of National Biography," the "Encyclopædia Britannica," the Camden Miscellany, the English Historical Review, Archæologia, the "Cambridge Medieval History," and the London Topographical Record. Mr. Kingsford's interests thus covered a fairly wide range. To all his work he brought the scholarship of the true researcher, and by his patient ingenuity and insight he added materially to the sum of historical knowledge.

He married Alys, daughter of C. T. Hudson, LL.D., F.R.S.