Michael Joseph Oakeshott (11 December 1901 – 19 December 1990) was an English philosopher and political theorist who wrote about philosophy of history, philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and philosophy of law. He is widely regarded as one of the most important conservative thinkers of the 20th century, although he has sometimes been characterized as a liberal thinker.

His father, Joseph Oakeshott, was a civil servant and a leading member of the Fabian Society. George Bernard Shaw was a friend. Michael Oakeshott attended St. George's School, Harpenden from 1912 to 1920. He enjoyed his schooldays, and the Headmaster Cecil Grant later became a friend.^{[citation needed]}

In 1920 he went to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge to read history, obtaining his MA, and subsequently became a Fellow. While at Cambridge, he admired the British Idealist philosopher, J. M. E. McTaggart, and the medieval historian Zachary Nugent Brooke. The historian Herbert Butterfield was a contemporary and fellow member of the Junior Historians society.^{[citation needed]}