| John Edwin Pomfret | |
| Order: | 20th |
| President of the College of William & Mary | |
| Term Start: | 1942 |
| Term End: | 1951 |
| Predecessor: | John Stewart Bryan |
| Successor: | Alvin Duke Chandler |
| Birth Date: | 21 September 1898 |
| Birth Place: | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Death Place: | Camden, South Carolina |
| Education: | University of Pennsylvania (AB, MA, PhD) |
| Notable Works: | -The Struggle for Land in Ireland -The Geographic Pattern of Mankind -The Province of West New Jersey -Founding the American Colonies. |
| Boards: | Associate trustee, University of Pennsylvania, 1946-59 trustee, Virginia Theological Seminary, 1946-51 trustee, Southwest Museum, 1952-66 president, Southern University Conference, 1948-49. |
| Spouse: | Sara Wise, m. August 28, 1926 |
| Children: | John Dana |
| Parents: | Edwin Pomfret Mary (O'Rorke) Pomfret |
| Awards: | LL.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1943 -LL.D., University of Chattanooga (now University of Tennessee at Chattanooga), 1949 -LL.D., Mills College, 1958 -Litt.D., University of Southern California, 1966 -Litt.D., Claremont Graduate School and University Center, 1966 |
| Footnotes: | [1] |
John Edwin Pomfret (September 21, 1898 - November 26, 1981)[2] was an American academic and administrator who served as the director of the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery and the twentieth president of the College of William & Mary.[3]
John Edwin Pomfret was born in Philadelphia on September 21, 1898. He received his Bachelor and master's degrees at the University of Pennsylvania. His specialty was the history of Colonial America, particularly the Province of New Jersey.
From 1925 to 1934. Pomfret was an associate professor of history at Princeton University. In 1936, he was appointed as an assistant dean at Princeton.[4]
In 1937 Pomfret became the dean of Vanderbilt University's Senior College of Arts and Science and Graduate School
In 1941, Pomfret was appointed president of William and Mary. As president, he collaborated with Colonial Williamsburg in the founding of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. In 1951, Pomfret resigned from William and Mary in the wake of a grade changing scandal involving the college's football team.[5] The college's board of visitors censured Pomfret for the scandal, although he'd had no knowledge of it. Some board members wanted to force Pomfret out of office since he opposed expansion of the college football program.
In 1951, Pomfret became the director of the Huntington Library. Due to the scandal at William and Mary, he had offered to withdraw his acceptance of the Huntington offer. After an investigation cleared Pomfret, the Huntington Board told Pomfret that they still wanted him. He served as director until his retirement in 1966.
Pomfret died in Camden, South Carolina on November 26, 1981.
His papers from his time as president can be found at the Special Collections Research Center at the College of William and Mary.[6] A full account of his career and an assessment of his personality by Allan Nevins will be found in Pomfret's festschrift, The Reinterpretation of Early American History, edited by Ray Allen Billington (The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, 1966).