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{{Short description|British historian}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2020}}
'''David Churchill Somervell''' (16 July 1885{{space}}– 17 January 1965) was an English historian and teacher. He taught at three well-known English [[Public school (United Kingdom)|public schools]] – [[Repton School|Repton]], [[Tonbridge School|Tonbridge]] and [[Benenden School|Benenden]] – and was the author of several volumes of history and the editor of well-regarded abridgements of other historians' works.

==Life and career==
Somervell was the son of Robert Somervell, a history master and [[bursar]] at [[Harrow School]].<ref name=times>"Mr D. C. Somervell: A Great Teacher of History", ''[[The Times]]'', 20 January 1965, p. 12</ref> He was educated at Harrow and [[Magdalen College, Oxford]].<ref name=who/> Becoming a schoolmaster himself, he taught at [[Repton School|Repton]] from 1909 to 1919, with a break during the First World War, during which he served in the [[Ministry of Munitions]].<ref>"Mr. D. C. Somervell", ''The Times'', 23 January 1965, p. 14</ref> In 1919 he was appointed history master at [[Tonbridge School]], where he remained until his retirement in 1950.<ref name=who>[http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U58314 "Somervell, David Churchill"], ''Who Was Who'', Oxford University Press, 2014, retrieved 5 August 2015 {{subscription required}}</ref> In 1918, he married Dorothea, daughter of the Rev D Harford. They had one son and one daughter.<ref name=who/> After retiring from Tonbridge he taught at the girls' school [[Benenden School|Benenden]], which was close to his retirement home.<ref>"Mr. D. C. Somervell",
''The Times'', 27 January 1965, p. 12</ref>

In his ''[[Who's Who (UK)|Who's Who]]'' entry Somervell listed eleven of his books: ''A Short History of our Religion'' (1922); ''Disraeli and Gladstone'' (1925); ''English Thought in the Nineteenth Century'' (1928); ''The British Empire'' (1930); ''The Reign of King George the Fifth'' (1935); ''Robert Somervell of Harrow'' (1935); ''Livingstone'' (1936); ''A History of the United States'' (1942); ''A History of Tonbridge School'' (1947); ''British Politics since 1900'' (1950); ''and Stanley Baldwin'' (1953).<ref name=who/>

''The Reign of King George V,'' (2nd ed, 1936) 550pp; has wide-ranging political, social and economic coverage, 1910–35. It is online free.<ref>See  [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.176466 online]</ref>

In addition to his own original writings, Somervell gained a reputation for his skill at abridging lengthy histories and other works into single volumes. His obituarist in ''[[The Times]]'' singled out a condensation and conflation of "two massive Victorian biographies of Disraeli and Gladstone into one short volume which did not deter the reader", and regarded as his best-known work his compression of [[Arnold J. Toynbee]]'s ten-volume ''[[A Study of History]]''.<ref name=times/> His abridgement of the Toynbee work was reissued in two volumes by the [[Oxford University Press]] in 1988.<ref>"New paperbacks", ''The Times'', 26 March 1988, p. 21</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
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* {{Gutenberg author | id=31583}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=David Churchill Somervell}}

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[[Category:1885 births]]
[[Category:1965 deaths]]
[[Category:People educated at Harrow School]]
[[Category:20th-century British historians]]