Mark Ormrod (historian)


William Mark Ormrod, was a Welsh historian who specialised in the Later Middle Ages of England. Born in South Wales, he studied at King's College, London, and then earned his Doctor of Philosophy at Worcester College, Oxford. He was employed at a number of institutions, eventually settling at the University of York where he became Dean of the History Faculty and director of the Centre for Medieval Studies. He researched and published widely, including nine books and over 80 book chapters. Ormrod retired in 2017 and died of cancer in 2020.
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Early life

Ormrod was born in Neath, South Wales, on 1 November 1957 to David and Margaret Ormrod, and had two younger brothers. He attended the local boys' grammar school, where he was head boy; he played and sang music. He took a first-class undergraduate degree at King's College, London, in 1979, and undertook postgraduate study at Worcester College, Oxford. He researched his D.Phil on the administration of Edward III's government between the years 1346 and 1356. This was awarded in 1984.

Career

After completing his doctorate, Ormrod held positions at the University of Sheffield, Queen's University Belfast, and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, obtaining a lectureship at the University of York in 1990. Here, he was appointed professor of History in 1995. He subsequently became Director of York’s Centre for Medieval Studies, Head of the Department of History, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities from 2009 until taking early retirement in 2017. Following the 2013 discovery of the remains of King Richard III—who died at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485—beneath a car park in Leicester, Ormrod supported the campaign to have the dead monarch reinterred in Yorkshire, saying the King had
Ormrod held numerous professional affiliations and memberships. These included Fellowship of the Royal Historical Society, Councillor of the Pipe Roll Society, trustee of the Richard III and Yorkist History Trust, and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He had also been an editor of the Yorkshire Archaeological Press, the York Medieval Press, and the Parliament Rolls of Medieval England (PROME) project. He frequently collaborated with the Borthwick Institute for Archives, and was particularly interested in opening access to archives online. These projects included England's Immigrants, 1350–1550, where he was the principal investigator between 2012–2015, and which identified 70,000 immigrants to the country over the period. His research on migration led to changes to the national curriculum. It also led to the creation of the Runnymede Trust's Our Migration Story campaign and won The Guardian Award for Research Impact in 2019.
He is probably best known for his 700-page biography on Edward III for the Yale English Monarchs series. One of his last works, this has been described as "a compelling study", "a first rate example of historical investigation", and an "exceptionally complex project that had defeated several earlier scholars". His penultimate book, Women and Parliament in Later Medieval England, investigated petitions to parliament by female supplicants and established that far from being silent on issues such as rape and dower, there were frequent submissions demanding change to the law and increased respect for women's rights in these and other areas.
In addition to his prodigious written output—"at least nine books, fourteen edited collections and well over eighty book chapters and articles"—Ormrod acted as Principal Investigator for nineteen major research projects worth more than £4 million in external funding, and supervised over 40 doctoral students and research assistants. July 2020 brought the publication of Monarchy, State, and Political Culture, a festschrift compiled in his honour by his colleagues Gwilym Dodd and Craig Taylor and presented to Ormrod by former students and colleagues. Dodd and Taylor also endowed the Mark Ormrod Prize, awarded annually to the best doctoral dissertation, on any medieval topic, at the University of York.

Death

Ormrod entered into a civil partnership in 2006. He died of bowel cancer aged 62 on 2 August 2020; the proofs for his final monograph, Winner and Waster, were delivered to his publisher ten days previously.

Select bibliography

;As author
  • Winner and Waster and its Contexts: Chivalry, Law and Economics in Fourteenth-Century England, Cambridge, 2021.
  • Women and Parliament in Later Medieval England, London, 2020.
  • Edward III, London 2011.
  • Political Life in Medieval England, 1300–1450, Basingstoke / New York, 1995.
  • The Reign Of Edward III: Crown and Political Society in England, 1327-1377, 1990
  • England in the Fourteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1985 Harlaxton Symposium, Woodbridge, 1986.
;As editor
;Websites