Ford Lewis Battles
A.B., West Virginia University, 1936B.A., University of Oxford, 1953
Ford Battles was a graduate student at Tufts University when he received a Rhodes Scholarship. He had graduated from West Virginia University with majors in English and Latin.
A native of Erie, Pennsylvania, he had family ties to WVU: his uncle, Friend Clark, chairman of the Chemistry department.
Battles did not begin his studies at Oxford immediately upon receipt of his scholarship. In 1941 he served as a major in the United States Army Air Corps intelligence branch. After World War II, he returned to WVU to teach.
He then entered Exeter College, Oxford, to study church history and became best known for his translations of the writings of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation. He taught at several church-affiliated colleges.