The son of
Henry Stenton of
Southwell, Nottinghamshire, he was educated at
Keble College, Oxford, and was elected an
Honorary Fellow in 1947. With
Allen Mawer, Stenton wrote the second
English Place-Name Society volume,
The Place-Names of Buckinghamshire, published in 1925. He delivered the
Ford Lectures at
Oxford University in 1929. He went on to write
Anglo-Saxon England, a volume of the
Oxford History of England, first published in 1943 and described by
Simon Keynes as "magisterial and massively authoritative". In the view of
Nicholas Higham writing in 1992 it "remains the most complete study of Anglo-Saxon history that has ever appeared. He was himself a historian of the first rank, an eminent place-name scholar and in addition well versed in archaeological literature." Stenton was a professor of history at the
University of Reading (1926 – 1946), and subsequently the university's vice-chancellor (1946–1950). During his period as vice-chancellor at Reading, he presided over the university's purchase of
Whiteknights Park, creating the new campus that allowed for the expansion of the university in later decades. In November 2008, it was announced that a new hall of residence to be constructed on that campus would be named Stenton Hall, in his honour. The annual Stenton Lecture, given by an eminent historian, was inaugurated at Reading University in 1967. He was
knighted in the
1948 New Year Honours, and received the
accolade from
King George VI at Buckingham Palace on 10 February 1948. His wife,
Doris Mary Stenton, wrote a preface to the third edition of
Anglo-Saxon England, published after his death, and edited
Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England: Being the Collected Papers of Frank Merry Stenton, published in 1970. She was a historian in her own right, producing
English Society in the Early Middle Ages for the
Pelican History of England, and
The English Woman in History (1957). Stenton's papers, together with those of his wife Doris, Lady Stenton, their library and his coin collection are part of the Special Collections in the
University of Reading. ==Publications==