Lingard, John, 1771-1851

John Lingard (5 February 1771 – 17 July 1851) was an English Catholic priest and historian, the author of The History of England, From the First Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of Henry VIII, an eight-volume work published in 1819. Lingard was a teacher at the English College at Douai, and at the seminary at Crook Hall, and later St. Cuthbert's College. In 1811 he retired to Hornby in Lancashire to continue work on his writing. Though Lingard was accorded no recognition by the British intellectual establishment and is no longer popular as an historian, his contribution to historical method came at a critical point in British intellectual history. That he was also a Catholic priest, in a turbulent time for the Church in England, makes that contribution all the more interesting.