Antonia Gransden

Antonia Gransden
Photographed while at the University of Nottingham
Born	Antonia Morland (1928-10-07)7 October 1928 Compton Dundon, Somerset, England
Died	18 January 2020(2020-01-18) (aged 91) Keinton Mandeville, Somerset
Spouse	K. W. Gransden ​ ​ (m. 1957; div. 1977)​
Academic background
Education	Dartington Hall Somerville College, Oxford University of London
Academic work
Discipline	History
Sub-discipline	Medieval history
Institutions	British Museum University of Nottingham
Notable works	Historical Writing in England (1982)

Antonia Gransden (née Morland; 7 October 1928 – 18 January 2020), English historian and medievalist, was Reader in Medieval History at the University of Nottingham. She was author of works in medieval historiography, including the massive two-volume study Historical Writing in England, covering a thousand years of historical writing from the 6th to the 16th century.^[1]

Work at the British Museum fuelled her fascination with the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds. She then went on to edit the records of the abbey, resulting in a two-volume History of the Abbey of Bury St Edmonds, which she completed aged 86.

Gransden was born Antonia Morland in Compton Dundon, Somerset.^[2][3] Her father was a director of Morlands clothing company in Glastonbury, Somerset.^[1] Educated at Dartington Hall and Somerville College, Oxford, she gained a first class degree and studied for a PhD, which she went on to earn from the University of London.^[2] She spent a decade as assistant keeper in the British Museum reading room from 1952, before joining Nottingham University as an assistant lecturer in 1964.^[1] She married Ken Gransden in 1957 and the couple had two daughters. However, the marriage was dissolved in 1977.^[4] She retired from Nottingham University in 1989.^[1]

Antonia Gransden was a long-standing member of the Labour Party, and an advocate for women's rights to education, equal pay and opportunities. She died from bronchopneumonia at a care home in Keinton Mandeville, Somerset, on 18 January 2020 at the age of 91.^[1][2] At the time of her death her "magisterial" two volumes on Historical Writing in England remained unsurpassed.^[5]

Scholia has an author profile for Antonia Gransden.

• A Critical Edition of the Bury St. Edmunds Chronicle in Arundel MS 30 (College of Arms), London: University of London, 1956.
• (ed.) The Letter-Book of William of Hoo, Sacrist of Bury St. Edmunds, 1280–1294, Publications, Vol. 5, Ipswich: Suffolk Records Society, 1963.
• (ed. & trans.) The Chronicle of Bury St Edmunds 1212–1301, Nelson's Medieval Texts, London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1964.
• (ed.) Customary of the Benedictine Abbey of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, Vol. 99, London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1970.
• Historical Writing in England c. 550 to c. 1307, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974.
• Historical Writing in England ii c. 1307 to the Early Sixteenth Century, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982.
• Legends, Traditions, and History in Medieval England, London: Hambledon Press, 1992.
• A History of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, 1257–1301: Simon of Luton and John of Northwold, Studies in the History of Medieval Religion, Vol. 42, Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2015.
• (ed.) Bury St Edmunds: Medieval Art, Architecture, Archaeology, and Economy, Abingdon: Routledge, 2020, ISBN 978-1-351-57288-0.