Professor Jack Scarisbrick (1928-2026) belonged to a generation of English Catholic intellectuals for whom scholarship and public action were twin obligations rather than rival vocations. For students of history he was the author of Henry VIII (1968), the still-commanding study that reshaped understanding of England’s most disruptive monarch. His later The Reformation and the English People (1984) extended that revisionist scholarship into the religious experience of ordinary men and women. To a wider public he was the co-founder of Life, the charity that for more than half a century has placed practical support for vulnerable pregnant women at the centre of the pro-life cause.
11:30 AM
Professor Jack Scarisbrick: historian of Henry VIII and pro-life pioneer
A leading figure in Catholic revisionist history and an unflinching advocate for vulnerable pregnant women, Scarisbrick brought intellectual seriousness to both scholarship and civic life
Andrew Cusack
5 min read
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