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'William Owen Chadwick', OM, KBE, FBA, FRSE (born 20 May 1916) is a British professor, writer and prominent historian of Christianity. He is a former Master of Selwyn College, University of Cambridge. Brother of the Very Reverend Professor Henry Chadwick, also a distinguished historian of the early Church and a former Dean of Christ Church, University of Oxford, and of the late Sir John Chadwick, British High Commissioner to Australia.
Chadwick attended Tonbridge School and St John's College, Cambridge, where he received a Blue in rugby and a First in History; he then attended Ripon College, Cuddesdon (a theological college) and was ordained to priesthood of the Church of England.
After the War, (during which he was Chaplain of Tonbridge) he was made Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1947. He was elected Master of Selwyn College, Cambridge in 1956, retiring in 1983. In 1958, he was named Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History, during which time he chaired the Archbishops' Commission on Church and State (1967-1971).
In 1968 he was elected Regius Professor of Modern History, a chair which he held until 1982, and was President of the British Academy during the early 1980s. As Vice-Chancellor he guided Cambridge through turbulent times in the late 1960s; and was Chancellor of the University of East Anglia after his retirement.
He was created a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1982. As a clergyman he did not receive the accolade and so remained the Rev. Owen Chadwick rather than 'Sir' Owen. He received the Order of Merit in 1983.
He has written many books, on the formation of the Papacy in the modern world; on Lord Acton; on the secularization of European thought and culture; on the Reformation; on the Church of England in England and elsewhere.
He is considered the doyen of church historians in the modern period.