J. L. (John Lawrence) Hammond

Born in 1872, he was a British journalist and writer on social history and politics. He studied at Bradford Grammar School and St John's College, Oxford, and early in his career edited The Speaker before later working for the Manchester Guardian.

He is most closely associated with the books he wrote with his wife, Barbara Hammond, especially the celebrated Labourer trilogy: The Village Labourer (1911), The Town Labourer (1917), and The Skilled Labourer (1919). These works focused on the effects of enclosure and industrialization on working people and made the Hammonds leading social historians of their time.

He also wrote on major political and historical figures and movements, including Lord Shaftesbury and The Age of the Chartists. He died in 1949, but his writing remains important for readers interested in British social history and the lives of ordinary people.