Antonia Gransden (née Morland; 7 October 1928 – 18 January 2020), English historian and medievalist, was Reader in Medieval History at the University of Nottingham. She was author of works in medieval historiography, including the massive two-volume study Historical Writing in England, covering a thousand years of historical writing from the 6th to the 16th century.[1]
Work at the British Museum fuelled her fascination with the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds. She then went on to edit the records of the abbey, resulting in a two-volume History of the Abbey of Bury St Edmonds, which she completed aged 86.
Gransden was born Antonia Morland.[2] Her father was a director of Morlands clothing company in Glastonbury, Somerset.[1] Educated at Dartington Hall and Somerville College, Oxford, she gained a first class degree and studied for a PhD. She spent a decade as assistant keeper in the British Museum reading room from 1952, before joining Nottingham University as an assistant lecturer in 1964.[1]She married Ken Gransden in 1957 and the couple had two daughters. However, the marriage was dissolved in 1977.[3] She retired from Nottingham University in 1989.[1]
Antonia Gransden was a long-standing member of the Labour Party, and an advocate for women's rights to education, equal pay and opportunities. She died on 18 January 2020 at the age of 91.[1] At the time of her death her "magisterial" two volumes on Historical Writing in England remained unsurpassed.[4]