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Lawrence Goldman

English historian

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ6504092 ↗
Source-derived summary

Lawrence Goldman (born 17 June 1957) is an English historian and academic. He is the former director the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004 to 2014) and of the Institute of Historical Research (2014 to 2017), University of London. He has a PhD from the University of Cambridge.

Biography

Born in London, he read history at Jesus College, Cambridge (1976–79), as an undergraduate. Upon graduation he received a Harkness Fellowship, which enabled him to study history of slavery and American Civil War at Yale University for a year with Ed Morgan, David Montgomery and David Brion Davis. He returned to Cambridge to undertake research in Victorian social science and social policy, and in 1982 he was elected a junior research fellow at Trinity College. In 1985, he moved to Oxford as university lecturer in the Department for Continuing Education. He continues to teach regular adult classes and is president of the Thames and Solent district of the Workers' Educational Association. In 1990, he was appointed to a Fellowship at St Peter's College, where he has also served as admissions tutor and senior dean.

During the academic year 2000–01, he was the university assessor, a senior administrator responsible for student welfare.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Lawrence Goldman” as english historian. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Lawrence, Goldman and English.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1957, 2004, 2014, 2017—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1957-06-17. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Lawrence, Goldman and English providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Lawrence Goldman”, the useful work is to connect “english historian” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6504092. VIAF identifies the subject as 90613665. The Library of Congress control number is n88107426. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1957, 2004, 2014 and 2017.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Lawrence Goldman”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Lawrence Goldman primary sources, Lawrence Goldman archive and Lawrence research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Lawrence Goldman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.