John Grenville

John Ashley Soames Grenville (11 January 1928 – 7 March 2011) was a historian of the modern world. Biography John Grenville was born Hans Guhrauer in Berlin, Germany on 11 January 1928. In 1939, escaped the Holocaust via Kindertransport with his brothers Julian and Walter, leaving his mother to join his father who had already fled to England. He officially changed his name in 1949 to John Ashley Soames Grenville upon receiving British citizenship. Sadly the persecution of the Jews progressed faster than his father had anticipated and his mother died in Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. His father had limited means to support the family and John attended a boarding school in Essex, followed by attendance at Cambridge Technical School. He then took a gardening job in Peterhouse, Cambridge. He was given access to the library at the college, but only if he promised not to apply there. Thus, he began to study on his own during the day and take classes at Birkbeck College, London in the evening. John was awarded the London County Council Grant, which enabled him to attend the University of London. He then attended Birkbeck College and the London School of Economics. He studied under Sir Charles Webster and received a First Class Honours Degree in History in 1951 and a PhD, for which he was awarded the Hutchinson Medal, in 1953. His dissertation was entitled Lord Salisbury and Foreign Policy: The Close of the 19th Century (1964). He was later a Commonwealth Fund Fellow at Yale University.