John Blair (historian)

William John Blair, FSA, FBA (born 4 March 1955) is an English historian, archaeologist, and academic, who specialises in Anglo-Saxon England. He is Professor of Medieval History and Archaeology at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford. He gave the 2013 Ford Lectures at the University of Oxford.

John Blair FSA FBA
Born	William John Blair 4 March 1955 Woking, Surrey, England
Title	Professor of Medieval History and Archaeology
Spouse(s)	Kanerva Blair-Heikkinen ​ ​ (m. 2005)​
Parent(s)	Claude Blair
Academic background
Alma mater	Brasenose College, Oxford
Thesis	Landholding, Church and Settlement in Surrey before 1300 (1983)
Academic work
Discipline	History archaeology
Sub-discipline	Early medieval English history
Institutions	The Queen's College, Oxford

Early life and education

Blair was born on 4 March 1955 in Woking, Surrey, England.[1] His father was Claude Blair, a museum curator and "one of the foremost authorities on historic European metalwork, especially arms and armour",[2] and his mother was Joan Mary Greville Blair (née Drinkwater).[1]

Blair was educated at St John's School, Leatherhead, an independent school in Leatherhead, Surrey.[1] He then studied at Brasenose College, Oxford, graduating with a first-class Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1976.[1] He remained at Brasenose College to undertake postgraduate research and completed his Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree in 1983.[1][3] His doctoral thesis was titled Landholding, Church and Settlement in Surrey before 1300: this subsequently became the basis of his first book, Early Medieval Surrey (1991).[4]

Academic career

During his doctoral research, Blair was a Junior Research Fellow at Brasenose College, Oxford.[3] In 1981, he was elected a Fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford.[1][3] Since then, he has been a praelector and tutor in history at the college.[1] On 1 October 2006, he was awarded a Title of Distinction by the University of Oxford as Professor of Medieval History and Archaeology.[5]

Blair gave the 2013 Ford Lectures at the University of Oxford.[6] The lecture series was tiled "Building the Anglo-Saxon Landscape".[7]

On 5 May 1983, Blair was elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA).[8] He was elected Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 2008.[9]

Personal life

In 2005, Blair married Kanerva Heikkinen. Together they have two children; one daughter and one son.[1]

Selected works

• Blair, John (1991). Early Medieval Surrey: Landholding, Church and Settlement before 1300. Gloucester: Alan Sutton Publishing. ISBN 978-0-86299-780-9.
• Blair, John (1994). Anglo-Saxon Oxfordshire. Oxford, Stroud and Dover, NH: Oxfordshire Books and Alan Sutton Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7509-0147-5.
• Blair, John (2000). The Anglo-Saxon Age: a very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-285403-2.
• Blair, John (2005). The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-822695-6.
• Blair, John, ed. (2007). Waterways and Canal-building in Medieval England. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-921715-1.
• Blair, John (2013). The British Culture of Anglo-Saxon Settlement. Cambridge: Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic. ISBN 978-0-9571862-9-3.
• Lapidge, Michael; Blair, John; Keynes, Simon; Scragg, Donald, eds. (2014). The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England (2nd ed.). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-470-65632-7.

References

1. "BLAIR, Prof. (William) John". Who's Who 2016. Oxford University Press. November 2015. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
2. Badham, Sally (12 March 2010). "Claude Blair obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
3. "Prof John Blair". The Queen's College. University of Oxford. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
4. Blair, John (1983). Landholding, Church and Settlement in Surrey before 1300 (PhD thesis). Oxford: University of Oxford. OCLC 863502663.
5. "Recognition of Distinction: Titles Awarded, 2005–6". Oxford University Gazette. 4784 (Supplement 1). 25 October 2006. Archived from the original on 2 October 2013. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
6. "John Blair to give the 2013 Ford Lectures". News. The Queen's College, Oxford. Archived from the original on 23 December 2013. Retrieved 24 May 2014.
7. "Professor John Blair". Faculty of History. University of Oxford. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
8. "Fellows Directory – B". About us. Society of Antiquaries. Retrieved 24 May 2014.
9. "Professor John Blair". British Academy Fellows. British Academy. Retrieved 9 September 2016.