Finberg , Herbert Patrick Reginald , 1900-1974 , historian

Born, Rickmansworth, 1900, and educated at Oxford University, where he received a third class in Lit Hum. Worked with Basil Blackwell and Bernard Newdigate at the Shakespeare Head Press before setting up his own press, the Alcuin, in a barn in Chipping Campden. In 1936, Finberg's company moved to Welwyn but foundered in the slump. He then became the director of the Broadwater Press and, in 1944, the editorial director of Burnes, Oates and Washbourne. He also served in an advisory capacity to Her Majesty's Printers and the Ministry of Works; genealogical research on the Duke of Bedford's estates resulting in the publication of his Tavistock Abbey in 1949. After attending meetings of the Devon Association, Finberg struck up a friendship with W.G.Hoskins, lecturer in economic history at Leicester University and co-authored a collection of essays Devonshire Studies. Reader and Head of the Department of English Local History, Leicester University until his retirement in 1965, editing a series of Occasional Papers in Local History and using his earlier publishing experience to launch and edit the Agricultural History Review, which he edited for 11 years; also general editor of the Agrarian History of England project and President of the British Agricultural History Society between 1966 and 1968. He was appointed Professor in 1964. In retirement, Finberg was also active, becoming part-time research assistant at Leeds, working with Maurice Beresford on a handlist of medieval boroughs, and between 1968 and 1969 was a Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge. He was a member of a committee of specialist advisors to the Vatican Council on vernacular liturgies. His Manual of Catholic Prayer (1962) was also awarded the Belgian Prix Graphica in 1965. Finberg died in November 1974.