Professor John “Jack” Joseph Scarisbrick, co-founder of the charity Life and renowned historian, has died peacefully at his home aged 97.
In the wake of the Abortion Act 1967, Jack and his wife Nuala — galvanised by their belief in the sanctity of life — set about providing “positive alternatives to abortion”.
Jack was awarded an MBE for services to vulnerable people in 2015, and pro-life campaigners praised him for his “incomparable work for unborn children and their mothers” upon his retirement as Life’s Chairman two years later.
Last year, Life provided counselling support on pregnancy related issues to over 3,600 clients, and housed 165 vulnerable women along with their babies.
Life begins at conception
Jack once observed: “It is now an unassailable fact that human life begins at conception. It is absurd to say that a being becomes more human the older or bigger it is. That the unborn child cannot have or does not have legal rights is mere assertion and flies in the face of the fact that our law has protected the child in the womb since the twelfth century.”
Paying tribute to his friend, fellow Roman Catholic Lord Alton of Liverpool said: “I count it one of the great privileges of my life to have known Jack – a brilliant historian, his powerful intellect and profound compassion were underpinned by remarkable energy and drive.
“In charting a path to create a coherent and effective pro life movement – based on an insistence that the lives of a woman and her child both mattered – he redefined and reshaped the arguments around what Jack called ‘the supreme human rights question.’ He was a colossus of the pro life movement.”
The Christian Institute’s Social Policy Analyst Sharon James, who was a near-neighbour to Jack and Nuala in Leamington Spa, remarked: “I’m grieving the death of Jack Scarisbrick. The times I met him, I was always struck by his humility, integrity, and courage.”
Academia
Alongside his commitment to the pro-life cause, Jack had a distinguished academic career. He completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at Christ’s College, Cambridge, before teaching at Queen Mary College in London.
He was appointed Professor of History at Warwick University in 1970, where he remained until his retirement in 1994. Jack published extensively on the Tudor period, and his biography of Henry VIII is still considered to be one of the standard works on his life.
He was predeceased by Nuala, his wife of 56 years, in 2021. He is survived by two daughters.