Jack Ravensdale

John Richard "Jack" Ravensdale was a British historian and author known for his publications on English local history.

Biography

Born in Feltham, Ravensdale studied at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge until 1939. After World War II he worked in Adult Education in Cornwall, until 1953 when he returned to live in Cambridge. There he lectured at Impington Village College and then at Homerton College, where he became Senior Lecturer in History.
Ravensdale appeared as a speaker in the first episode of the 1982 BBC Two series History on Your Doorstep. His book History on Your Doorstep was a bestseller. A street is named after him in Landbeach, the Cambridgeshire village in which he lived from about 1971 and whose history he documented in great detail in The Domesday Inheritance.