Sir Herbert Butterfield (1900 – 1979) was an English historian and philosopher of history, who was Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge. He served as Master of Peterhouse College, and was Vice-Chancellor of the University (1959-1961).
Butterfield was most famous for his thesis on what he called the Whig interpretation of history which saw the past in terms of being a stage in moving towards the present (which in one sense it is, but the historical actors knew nothing of our times and did not see their times as leading to now, and so need to be examined in terms of their own beliefs, aspirations, intentions, motivations, etc.)
However, Butterfield was also a historian of science who recognised the difficulty of conceptual change when this required a complete shift in conceptual framework (what might today be considered a paradigm change).
