E Gordon Rupp, 1910-1986, was one of the leading historians of his generation, specialising in the Protestant Reformation (particularly Luther) and eighteenth-century England. After a degree in history at King’s College, London he prepared for ministry at Wesley House from 1933 to 1937. After further study in Strasbourg and Basel and a period of circuit ministry he taught at Richmond College from 1947 to 1952, when he became a lecturer in Divinity at Cambridge University, taking his Doctorate in Divinity in 1955. In 1956 he became the first Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Manchester University before moving to Wesley House as Principal in 1967. The following year he combined that appointment with the Dixie Professorship of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge and a Fellowship at Emmanuel College. He retired from Wesley House in 1974 and from the Professorship three years later. He published extensively and was an active ecumenist, one of the founders of the Cambridge Theological Federation, a member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches and an official Observer at the Second Vatican Council. He was elected President of the Methodist Conference in 1968 and was made a Fellow of the British Academy in 1970.