Peter Mathias
British historian (1928–2016)
Peter Mathias, (10 January 1928 – 1 March 2016) was a British economic historian and the former Chichele Professor of Economic History at the University of Oxford. His research focused on the history of industry, business, and technology, both in Britain and Europe. He is most well known for his publication of The First Industrial Nation: an Economic History of Britain 1700–1914 (1969), which discussed not only the multiple factors that made industrialisation possible, but also how it was sustained.
Early life and education
Mathias was born in Freshford, Somerset to Jack Mathias (from Plymouth) and Marion (née) Love (from Wingfield).
He attended Colston's School and Bristol Grammar School where he became interested in history. In December 1945, he applied for a scholarship at King's College, Cambridge; instead he won an Exhibition at Jesus College, Cambridge, during summer 1946. However the college demanded that those coming up from school should have done military service before they arrived so he spent two years in the army as a conscript. At Cambridge, his tutor was the medievalist, Vivian Fisher, and the English economic historian, Charles Wilson. Mathias also spent the 1952–3 academic year at Harvard University, participating in the Research Center for Entrepreneurial History.
Academic career
He was elected a Research Fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge, when he published his first book on the brewing industry in England.
“Peter Mathias” enters the record as british historian (1928–2016). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Peter, Mathias and British can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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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 Mar 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7175705. VIAF identifies the subject as 34471486. The Library of Congress control number is nb2006026074. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1928, 2016, 1700 and 1914.
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This entry incorporates text from “Peter Mathias” 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.