Stanford Lehmberg

Stanford E. Lehmberg (1931 – June 14, 2012) was an American historian and professor.

Stanford E. Lehmberg was born in McPherson, Kansas. Lehmberg's father was a Kansas dealer in farm implements, who spent most of his life also managing a local bank. Lehmberg's mother was a teacher (of Latin) in Kansas public schools before Stanford was born. Lehmberg was a good student in McPherson public schools, and also received training in organ performance during his junior high and high school years.

Lehmberg attended the University of Kansas, receiving a BA degree (Humanities) in 1953 and an MA degree (History, specializing in Italian Renaissance) in 1954. After his MA, Lehmberg applied for and received a Fulbright Scholarship to study abroad, which he used at the University of Cambridge. He received a Ph.D. (1956) from Cambridge after completing a dissertation on Sir Thomas Elyot, author of the first Latin-English dictionary to be published in sixteenth-century England. In that effort Lehmberg worked extensively with noted English historian Sir Geoffrey Elton.

While still in England Lehmberg received a job offer from the University of Texas at Austin. He taught British History at that University from 1956 to 1969. He found that institution's History Library to be almost non-existent in the British History section, and worked tirelessly to increase its size and stature, although during his entire time there the library's budget was quite limited.

When esteemed historian and professor David Harris Willson retired from the University of Minnesota, Lehmberg was invited to move to Minnesota. He has taught at UM since 1969, twice chairing the History Department, and in 2000 co-authoring a history of the university.

Lehmberg's Ph.D. thesis eventually evolved into his first book, Sir Thomas Elyot, Tudor Humanist (1960). He then wrote a modernized edition of Elyot's book Book Named the Governor (1962). His next book was a history of Sir Walter Mildmay's political career, Sir Walter Mildmay and Tudor Government (1964). Later came The Reformation Parliament, 1529-1536 (1970), with a sequel The Later Parliaments of Henry VIII, 1536-1547 (1977). He wrote a history of English cathedrals The Reformation of Cathedrals: Cathedrals in English Society, 1485-1603 (1988), and a comprehensive period history, The Peoples of the British Isles, from Prehistoric Times to 1688 (1991), and concluded with another study of cathedrals, Cathedral Under Siege: Cathedrals in English Society, 1600-1700 (1996). With another UM professor, he wrote The University of Minnesota, 1945-2000 (2000, co-author with Ann M. Pflaum)

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