We are deeply saddened to pass on the news of the death of Dr Frank Prochaska on Sunday 15th February, his 85th birthday.
Frank was an accomplished historian of modern Britain and a valued member of the Somerville College SCR for many years alongside his wife Dr Alice Prochaska (1965, History), our Principal from 2010-17.
Frank was born in America, but lived much of his life in Britain. He taught at universities on both sides of the Atlantic and in recent years taught British history at Yale. He moved to Oxford in 2010, where he became a member of Somerville and Wolfson Colleges. He was a Research Fellow at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London University, and a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford.
The author of a number of critically acclaimed books on British history, some of his notable works are Eagle and the Crown: Americans and the British Monarchy (2008, reprinted 2016), Eminent Victorians on American Democracy: The View from Albion (2013), Christianity and Social Service in Modern Britain: The Disinherited Spirit (2006), Royal Bounty: The Making of a Welfare Monarchy (1995) and The Voluntary Impulse: Philanthropy in Modern Britain (1989).
Frank lectured and reviewed widely, and contributed to media programmes and the press in Britain on contemporary social policy and the monarchy. He was an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Historical Research, London University, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Senior Research Fellow at Somerville. As a scholar of Victorian social reform and ideas, he helped to establish the programme of work on the John Stuart Mill Library and the rich store of Mill annotations continues to this day at Somerville College.
Frank is survived by his wife, Alice, their two children, Will and Elizabeth, and their grandchildren.
Further details of the funeral will be shared in due course.
Dr Frank Prochaska in the John Stuart Mill Library at Somerville College, which he was instrumental in creating.