{{Short description|English historian (1850–1904)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2025}} {{Use British English|date=May 2012}} {{Infobox academic | name = Frederick York Powell | image = File:Frederick York Powell, The Album, July 15, 1895--75 (cropped).jpg | alt = | caption = | birth_date = {{birth date|1850|1|4|df=y}} | birth_place = Bloomsbury, London, England | death_date = {{death date and age|1904|5|8|1850|1|4|df=y}} | death_place = Oxford, England | residence = | other_names = York Powell | home_town = | title = Regius Professor of Modern History | spouse = | children = | parents = | awards = <!--notable national-level awards only--> | alma_mater = Christ Church, Oxford | thesis_title = | thesis_year = | school_tradition = | doctoral_advisor = | academic_advisors = | influences = Guðbrandur Vigfússon<ref>{{cite book |last=Sutcliffe |first=Peter H. |year=2002 |orig-year=1978 |title=The Oxford University Press: An Informal History |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=[https://archive.org/details/oxforduniversity0000sutc/page/81 81] |isbn=978-0-19-951084-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/oxforduniversity0000sutc/page/81 }}</ref> | era = | discipline = History | sub_discipline = <!--academic discipline specialist area – e.g. Sub-atomic research, 20th Century Danish specialist, Pauline research, Arcadian and Ugaritic specialist--> | workplaces = Oriel College, Oxford | doctoral_students = <!--only those with WP articles--> | notable_students = {{flatlist| * Charles A. Beard<ref>{{cite journal |last=Lerner |first=Max |author-link=Max Lerner |year=1950 |title=The Political Theory of Charles A. Beard |journal=American Quarterly |volume=2 |issue=4 |page=304 |doi=10.2307/3031222 |jstor=3031222 |issn=1080-6490}}</ref> * R.&nbsp;B. Merriman<ref>{{cite book |last=Cannadine |first=David |author-link=David Cannadine |year=2003 |orig-year=2002 |title=In Churchill's Shadow: Confronting the Past in Modern Britain |location=London |publisher=Penguin Books |page=189 |isbn=978-0-19-517156-3}}</ref> }} | main_interests = | notable_works = | notable_ideas = | influenced = Percy Dearmer<ref>{{cite book |last=Beeson |first=Trevor |author-link=Trevor Beeson |year=2006 |title=The Canons: Cathedral Close Encounters |location=London |publisher=SCM Press |page=101 |isbn=978-0-334-04041-5}}</ref> | signature = | signature_alt = }} '''Frederick York Powell''' (4 January 1850 – 8 May 1904) was an English historian and scholar.

== Biography == [[File:Frederick York Powell 21 March 1895.jpg|thumb|Powell as caricatured by Spy (Leslie Ward) in ''Vanity Fair'', March 1895]] He was born on 4 January 1850 at 43 Woburn Place, Bloomsbury, London, the son of Frederick Powell, a commissariat merchant, and his wife Mary Powell, daughter of Dr James Powell. He was educated at the Manor House School at Hastings, and Rugby School. He matriculated at the University of Oxford in 1868 as an unattached student, the following year joining Christ Church, where he took a first-class degree in law and modern history in 1872.<ref name="ODNB">{{cite ODNB|id=35589|first=Carolyne|last=Larrington|title=Powell, Frederick Yorke}}</ref> Whilst at Oxford, he was a member of the exclusive Stubbs Society.

Powell was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1874.

He became law-lecturer and tutor of Christ Church, fellow of Oriel College, delegate of the Clarendon Press, and in 1894 he was made Regius Professor of Modern History in succession to James Anthony Froude. In June 1901 he received an honorary doctorate (LLD) from the University of Glasgow during celebrations for the university's 450th jubilee.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-times-glasgow-university-jubilee/131294008/ |date=14 June 1901 |title=Glasgow University Jubilee |page=10 |newspaper=The Times|publication-place=London |issue=36481 |access-date=2024-01-05 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>

Powell died on 8 May 1904 at Staverton Grange, Banbury Road, Oxford, and was buried in Wolvercote. Part of his collection of artefacts were deposited at the Pitt Rivers Museum.<ref name="Petch">{{cite web|url=http://england.prm.ox.ac.uk/englishness-Frederick-York-Powell.html|title=Frederick York Powell|last=Petch|first=Alison|work=England: The Other Within|publisher=Pitt Rivers Museum|access-date=11 January 2011}}</ref>

==Associations== Powell took an interest in French poetry, and Paul Verlaine, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Emile Verhaeren all lectured at Oxford under his auspices. He was also a connoisseur in Japanese art. In politics his sympathies were with the oppressed of all nationalities; he had befriended refugees after the Commune, counting among his friends Jules Vallès the author of ''Les Réfractaires''; and he was also a friend of Stepniak and his circle.

Powell was a member of the Folklore Society and became its president in the year that he died. The society's journal, which had published his papers, printed an obituary by Edward Clodd.

==Works== Powell's contributions to history were not extensive, but he was a particularly stimulating teacher. He had been attracted in his school days to the study of Scandinavian history and literature, and he was closely allied with Professor Guðbrandur Vigfússon (d. 1889), whom he assisted in his ''Icelandic Prose Reader'' (1897), ''Corpus Poeticum Boreale'' (1887), and ''Origines Islandicae'' (1905), and in the editing of the ''Grimm Centenary'' papers (1886).<ref>{{cite magazine|title=POWELL, F. York|magazine=Who's Who|year=1900|volume= 52|page=816|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WFooAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA816|last1=Addison|first1=Henry Robert|last2=Oakes|first2=Charles Henry|last3=Lawson|first3=William John|last4=Sladen|first4=Douglas Brooke Wheelton}}</ref>

==Family== Powell married in 1874 Florence Batten (née Silke). She died in 1888. They had a daughter, Mariella.<ref name="ODNB"/>

==Further reading== * Richard Davenport-Hines, ''History in the House: Some Remarkable Dons, and the Teaching of Politics Character and Statecraft''. Collins, London 2024, ISBN 978-0-00-828572-2.

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== {{Wikiquote}} *Oliver Elton, [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100246194 ''Frederick York Powell: A Life and Selection from his Letters and Occasional Writings''] (1906) * {{FadedPage|id=Powell, Frederick York|name=Frederick York Powell|author=yes}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Frederick York Powell}} * {{wikisource author-inline}}

;Attribution {{EB1911|wstitle=Powell, Frederick York|volume=22|page=223}}

{{s-start}} {{s-aca}} {{s-bef|before=James Anthony Froude}} {{s-ttl|title=Regius Professor of Modern History<br />at the University of Oxford|years=1894–1904}} {{s-aft|after=Charles Harding Firth}} {{s-end}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Powell, Frederick York}} Category:1850 births Category:1904 deaths Category:Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford Category:19th-century English historians Category:19th-century English male writers Category:English socialists Category:Fellows of Oriel College, Oxford Category:People educated at Rugby School Category:People from Bloomsbury Category:Regius Professors of History (University of Oxford) Category:Presidents of the Folklore Society Category:English male non-fiction writers