John Cornforth (historian)

John Lewley Cornforth CBE (2 September 1937 – 5 May 2004) was a British architectural historian with a particular interest in the history of English country houses.

[1] He was educated at Repton School and then studied history at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he was influenced by art historian Michael Jaffé.

[1] After university, Cornforth worked as a volunteer in the British Museum in London, and started to write articles for Country Life, joining the staff at the magazine in 1961.

This charity is concerned with funding research and publication in English local history, archaeology and related subjects.

When in 2001 the Fund's council members proposed a fitting tribute on his retirement, Cornforth put forward the idea of a book of inventories to provide a primary resource for "the interpretation of the historic interior".

As the book's dust-wrapper states: "John Cornforth's hope was that this publication would revitalise the study of the great house in the eighteenth century.

[1] He never married, but kept a convivial flat in Marylebone, and worshipped at the Anglo-Catholic church St Mary's, Bourne Street, near Sloane Square.