Reginald W. (Reginald Welbury) Jeffery

Reginald W. Jeffery was a British historian and writer identified in library and book records as Reginald Welbury Jeffery. The Project Gutenberg edition of The History of the Thirteen Colonies of North America 1497–1763 reproduces the original title page, which describes him as an M.A. of Brasenose College, Oxford, and shows that the book was first published in 1908.

In the book's preface, he explains that his aim was to give readers a handy, readable narrative of the colonies while using the words of contemporaries whenever possible. That approach gives his history a straightforward style: concise, informative, and closely tied to documentary evidence rather than grand rhetoric.

Jeffery is best remembered today for The History of the Thirteen Colonies of North America 1497–1763, a study of exploration, settlement, and the growth of Britain's mainland colonies before the American Revolution. Search results also link his name with other historical and local-interest works, but the colonial history remains the title most readily confirmed from the sources reviewed here.