The life and thought of Herbert Butterfield: history, science, and God

When Sir Herbert Butterfield died in 1979, he had already lost most of his audience. Those in the second half of their life might recall The Whig interpretation of history, if they had been made to read it at school, though its rubbishing thirty years later by E.H. Carr in What is history? provided fresher memories. Or they may have had on their shelf at home Christianity and history, which had created a flurry of interest on both sides of the Atlantic in the early 1950s. The postwar British generation heard, many of them, the radio broadcasts--often in school--or the endless lectures that Butterfield had delivered to the Historical Association or the columns he occasionally contributed to the press. But it was all a long time ago: they knew the name, the Yorkshire voice perhaps, but little else. For the professional historians, among whom Butterfield had spent most of his life, he remained a considerable force but one marked by failure.