School of English

This page shows the staff for the University of Nottingham's School of English in the UK. Please see here for the School of Education and English in China and the School of English in Malaysia.

Image of Peter McClure

Peter McClure

Honorary Professor (Name-Studies), Faculty of Arts

Contact

Biography

I was born in Worthing, Sussex, in 1941 and went to school in Croydon, Surrey, and Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex. I took my first degree at the University of Nottingham (BA Hons in English Language and Literature, 1963), where I subsequently conducted postgraduate research on 'The surnames of medieval Nottinghamshire' under Dr Kenneth Cameron. From 1965 to 1990 I lectured in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Hull, where I later received my PhD by published work: 'Studies in the interpretation of Middle English personal names and surnames'. In 1977 I founded Nomina, the Journal of the Council (now the Society) for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland and remained its editor until 1985. I am a former President of that Society and a current Vice-President of the English Place-Name Society. Since 2007 I have been acting as a consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary on English personal names and surnames. In 2016 I joined the Institute for Name-Studies at Nottingham as an Honorary Professor.

Research Summary

My principal research interest concerns the insights that English personal names and surnames can give to a wide range of historical issues: family origins and social mobility; changes in culture,… read more

Selected Publications

  • PATRICK HANKS, RICHARD COATES and PETER MCCLURE, 2016. The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland Oxford University Press.
  • PETER MCCLURE, 2013. Explaining English surnames: linguistic ambiguity and the importance of context. Part I Nomina. 36, 1-33
  • PETER MCCLURE, 2010. Middle English occupational bynames as lexical evidence: a study of names in the Nottingham borough court rolls 1303-1455. Part 1, Methodology Transactions of the Philological Society. 108(2), 164-77
  • PETER MCCLURE, 1979. Patterns of migration in the late Middle Ages: the evidence of English place-name surnames Economic History Review. 2nd series 32, 167-82

School of English

Trent Building
The University of Nottingham
University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD

telephone: +44 (0) 115 951 5900
email: english-enquiries@nottingham.ac.uk