James Field Willard

Background

James Field Willard, the son of Edward Malon and Elizabeth Prudence (Field) Willard, was born on December 30, 1876 in a Quaker family of Philadelphia.

Education

He was educated in the public schools of that city, received the degree of B. S. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1898, did graduate work at the University of Wisconsin for two years, and acquired the degree of Ph. D. at Pennsylvania, under the direction of Edward P. Cheyney, with a dissertation on The Royal Authority and the Early English Universities (1902).

Career

After two years as instructor in history at Northwestern University (1902 - 04), he pursued further study as Harrison research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania (1904 - 06). In 1906 he went to the University of Colorado, where he spent the remainder of his life as professor and head of the department of history. Trained as a medievalist and interested in research, Willard found himself at the age of thirty in what was then a small Western state university, five thousand miles away from the chief manuscript source materials in his chosen field of study. By frequent trips to England and by building up his own and the university library, however, he was enabled to engage in scholarly activities to such an extent that he came to be recognized as one of the foremost authorities on English medieval history. He also continued his interest in Western history - he had studied under Frederick J. Turner

as well as Charles H. Haskins at Wisconsin - established the University of Colorado Historical Collections, and gathered source materials on Colorado history. He edited the records of The Union Colony at Greeley, Colorado, 1869-1871 (1918), and, with C. B. Goodykoontz, Experiments in Colorado Colonization (1926). His material on the gold rush, which he did not live to edit, was later used by LeRoy R. Hafen in his Colorado Gold Rush: Contemporary Letters and Reports, 1858-1859 (1941).

In 1923 he began to issue annually The Progress of Medieval Studies in the United States, a useful compilation of research projects and achievements. Interested in precise information, he initiated a project of cooperative scholarship on the actual working of the English government in the reign of Edward III. The advisory and preliminary editorial work on the first of the three proposed volumes had been largely completed before Willard's untimely death; the other two had been planned. The editorial work on the first volume was finished and the introduction written by William A. Morris; it appeared in 1940 under the title The English Government at Work, 1327-1336: Central and Prerogative Administration. Another cooperative undertaking in which Willard was interested was the Dictionary of Late Medieval British Latin; he edited, with J. H. Baxter and C. Johnson, "An Index of British and Irish Latin Writers, 400-1520".

Achievements

• Willard's primary interest remained in medieval history. His chief contribution in that field was his definitive study of Parliamentary Taxes on Personal Property, 1290-1334 (1934); he also had an important part in the preparation of the Surrey Taxation Returns (1932) for the Surrey Record Society.

Works

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  • The Union Colony at Greeley, Colorado, 1869-1871 (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Union Colony at Greeley, Colorado, 1869-...)

  • Report on the Archives of the State of Wyoming

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • The Royal Authority and the Early English Universities

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

Membership

In addition to membership in the usual historical societies, Willard was one of the founders of the Mediaeval Academy of America and a member of its executive committee. His election as honorary vice-president of the Royal Historical Society in 1934 was an indication of the esteem in which he was held by English scholars.

Personality

Always demanding accurate details, Willard was at his best with small groups of advanced students; they found in him an exacting master and a stimulating teacher. He was not so successful as a lecturer in large classes, but he loved contacts with undergraduates and shared fully their enthusiasm for college life and sports. Large in stature and vigorous, he had engaged in athletics as a young man; but his physical activities in later life were curtailed by the amputation of a leg. Outspoken in his criticisms and frank in his expression of opinion, he was a foe of hypocrisy and sham. He had a strong sense of community responsibility and found time to help in the administration of the local community chest and in the reorganization of a bank.

Connections

On January 4, 1912, he married Margaret Wheeler, to whom he properly paid more than perfunctory tribute for the help she gave him in his scholarly activities. An only child, a daughter, predeceased him.

Father:

Edward Malon

Mother:

Elizabeth Prudence (Field) Willard

Spouse:

Margaret Wheeler