John Andrew Gallagher

Who was John Andrew Gallagher?

John "Jack" Andrew Gallagher, FBA was a distinguished historian of the British Empire who between 1963 and 1970 held the Beit Professorship of Commonwealth History at the University of Oxford and from 1971 until his death was the Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at the University of Cambridge.

After schooling at the Birkenhead Institute, he proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, as a History Scholar and with the outbreak of the Second World War he joined the Royal Tank Regiment, eventually serving in Italy, Greece, and North Africa. After the end of the war, Gallagher returned to Cambridge to complete his studies and was elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1948.

Gallagher's extraordinarily influential work, Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism, was co-authored with Ronald Robinson and first published in 1961. This was preceded by a widely read article—also co-authored with Robinson—entitled, The Imperialism of Free Trade. Published in 1953, the latter constitutes a groundbreaking essay among theorists of imperial expansion and "is reputedly the most cited historical article ever published".