Thomas Frederick Tout (1855–1929) was an English medieval historian and one of the leading figures in the professional study of English administrative history. He was born in London and educated at St Olave's Grammar School and Pembroke College, Oxford. He taught at St David's College, Lampeter, from 1881, then moved in 1890 to Owens College, Manchester, as professor of history. He held the chair at Manchester, later the Victoria University of Manchester, until he retired in 1925. At Manchester he built a notable school of medieval research and trained many later historians. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1911. He worked closely with his wife, Mary Tout, who was also a historian. His early books included a biography, Edward the First (1893), and The Empire and the Papacy, 918–1273 (1898). He then turned to the machinery of government. His major work was Chapters in the Administrative History of Mediaeval England, published in six volumes from 1920 to 1933. It showed how the king's household, wardrobe and chamber shaped the state. Other works from the same period include The Place of the Reign of Edward II in English History (1914). A Mediaeval Burglary (about 1916) comes from his work for the John Rylands Library. It tells the story of the 1303 theft of the king's treasure from Westminster Abbey and draws on the surviving records of the case. He died in October 1929, before the final volume of the Chapters was finished.
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