The English historians John Lawrence Le Breton Hammond (1872-1952) and Lucy Barbara Hammond (1873-1961) were joint authors of a number of histories of the English working class.

Lawrence Hammond was born at Drighlington, Yorkshire, on July 18, 1872. His future wife, Lucy Barbara Bradby, was born in London in July 1873. Both were children of Anglican clergymen with working-class parishes, Lawrence's in the industrial north, Barbara's among the London docks. Both Lawrence and Barbara attended Oxford University, he at St. John's College, where he studied classics, and she at Lady Margaret Hall, where she was known as one of the most brilliant students of her time. They were married in 1901.

In 1897 Lawrence Hammond entered a career in journalism as a writer for the Leeds Mercury and the Liverpool Post. Two years later he became editor of the new liberal weekly, the Spectator, which had been launched to oppose British imperialism in...