V. H. (Vivian Hunter) Galbraith

Vivian Hunter Galbraith was an English historian born in Sheffield on December 15, 1889, and educated at Highgate School, Manchester University, and Balliol College, Oxford. Early in his career he studied under important historians including Maurice Powicke, Thomas Frederick Tout, and James Tait, and he quickly developed a lasting interest in medieval records and chronicles.

After service in the First World War, he worked at the Public Record Office, where daily contact with original documents helped shape his practical, source-based approach to history. He later returned to Oxford, became a fellow of Balliol, taught at Edinburgh, and went on to serve as director of the Institute of Historical Research before becoming Oxford's Regius Professor of Modern History from 1947 to 1957.

Galbraith made a major mark through his work on medieval chronicles, public records, and especially the Domesday Book, which he reexamined in influential studies including The Making of Domesday Book. He was also a Fellow of the British Academy, and his reputation rests not only on his own scholarship but on the way he helped train and influence later historians.