The Age of Asa: Lord Briggs, Public Life and History in Britain since 1945 PDF
Preview The Age of Asa: Lord Briggs, Public Life and History in Britain since 1945
The Age of Asa This page intentionally left blank The Age of Asa Lord Briggs, Public Life and History in Britain since 1945 Editedby Miles Taylor UniversityofYork,UK Selection,introductionandeditorialmatter©MilesTaylor2015 Foreword©DavidCannadine2015 Individualchapters©Respectiveauthors2015 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-39257-2 Allrightsreserved.Noreproduction,copyortransmissionofthis publicationmaybemadewithoutwrittenpermission. Noportionofthispublicationmaybereproduced,copiedortransmitted savewithwrittenpermissionorinaccordancewiththeprovisionsofthe Copyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988,orunderthetermsofanylicence permittinglimitedcopyingissuedbytheCopyrightLicensingAgency, SaffronHouse,6–10KirbyStreet,LondonEC1N8TS. Anypersonwhodoesanyunauthorizedactinrelationtothispublication maybeliabletocriminalprosecutionandcivilclaimsfordamages. Theauthorshaveassertedtheirrightstobeidentifiedastheauthorsofthis workinaccordancewiththeCopyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988. Firstpublished2015by PALGRAVEMACMILLAN PalgraveMacmillanintheUKisanimprintofMacmillanPublishersLimited, registeredinEngland,companynumber785998,ofHoundmills,Basingstoke, HampshireRG216XS. PalgraveMacmillanintheUSisadivisionofStMartin’sPressLLC, 175FifthAvenue,NewYork,NY10010. PalgraveMacmillanistheglobalacademicimprintoftheabovecompanies andhascompaniesandrepresentativesthroughouttheworld. Palgrave®andMacmillan®areregisteredtrademarksintheUnitedStates, theUnitedKingdom,Europeandothercountries. ISBN 978-1-349-48337-2 ISBN 978-1-137-39259-6 (eBook) DOI10.1057/9781137392596 Thisbookisprintedonpapersuitableforrecyclingandmadefromfully managedandsustainedforestsources.Logging,pulpingandmanufacturing processesareexpectedtoconformtotheenvironmentalregulationsofthe countryoforigin. AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData TheageofAsa:LordBriggs,publiclifeandhistoryinBritain since1945/MilesTaylor,UniversityofYork,UK. pages cm Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. Basedonaone-dayconferenceheldon19May2011attheInstitute ofHistoricalResearchtomarkLordBriggs’90thbirthday. 1. Briggs,Asa,1921—Congresses. 2. Briggs,Asa,1921—Influence— Congresses. 3. Historians—GreatBritain—Biography. 4. Nobility—GreatBritain—Biography. 5. Historiography— GreatBritain. I. Taylor,Miles,editor,author. II. Title: LordBriggs,publiclifeandhistoryinBritainsince1945. DA3.B67A642014 941.0072(cid:2)02—dc23 2014028176 Contents ForewordbyDavidCannadine vii Acknowledgements ix NotesonContributors x Introduction:AsaBriggsandPublicLifeinBritainsince1945 1 MilesTaylor Part I History 1 TheInterconnectednessofThings:AsaBriggsandSocial History 23 RohanMcWilliam 2 ALittleBitofaVictorian?AsaBriggsandVictorianStudies 46 MartinHewitt 3 VictorianCapitalistsandMiddle-ClassFormation: ReflectionsonAsaBriggs’Birmingham 79 FrancescaCarnevaliandJenniferAston 4 AsaBriggsandtheRemakingofAustralianHistoriography 90 FrankBongiorno 5 AsaBriggsandtheEmergenceofLabourHistoryin Post-WarBritain 108 JohnMcIlroy Part II Broadcasting 6 FromtheDailyMailtotheBBC:Communicationsin Britain,c.1896–1922 145 JamesThompson 7 BroadcastingCarriesOn!AsaBriggsandtheHistory oftheWartimeBBC 165 SiânNicholas v vi Contents 8 AsaandtheEpochs:TheBBC,theHistorian,the InstitutionandtheArchive 184 JeanSeaton Part III Universities 9 BacktoYorkshire:‘Asia’BriggsatLeeds,1955–1961 213 MalcolmChase 10 AsaBriggsandtheUniversityofSussex,1961–1976 225 MatthewCragoe 11 AsaBriggsandtheOpeningUpoftheOpenUniversity 248 DanielWeinbren 12 FromWorcestertoLongman:DevisingtheHistoryofthe Book 267 JamesRaven SelectBibliography 288 Index 290 Foreword ItisahugepleasuretointroducethisbookaboutAsaBriggs.Theoriginal conference from which it derives could have gone on for several days, sovaried,sodiverse,sodistinguishedandsomany-sidedhasbeenAsa’s contributiontohistory,toacademeandtopubliclife.Therecouldhave beensessionsonAsaasbiographer:ofMarx,ofRowntree,ofGladstone andofMichaelYoung.TherecouldhavebeensessionsonAsaasalabour historian, as a business historian, as a historian of publishing, as a his- torianofscienceandtechnology,andasahistorianofmedicine.There could have been sessions on Asa as a paid-up and card-carrying mem- berofthegreatandthegood:aschairmanofgovernmentcommittees, member of the University Grants Committee, Vice-Chairman of the CounciloftheUnitedNationsUniversity,trusteeofBrightonPavilion, judge of the Wolfson History Prize and as President of the Social His- torySociety,theWorkers’EducationalAssociation,theVictorianSociety, the Ephemera Society and the Brontë Society. Perhaps on Asa’s 100th birthdayweshallfinallygettotheseadditionalaspectsofhisworkand life,althoughbythenhewillnodoubthavewrittenanotherhalf-dozen booksopeningupanotherhalf-dozensubjects. But this volume focuses on three of the major aspects of Asa’s work. First, Asa as a historian of Victorian Britain who in the second half of the 20th century did more than any other scholar to bring the 19th centuryalive:inhishistoryofBirmingham,inhistrilogyVictorianPeo- ple,VictorianCitiesandVictorianThingsandinhisunrivalledsurveyThe AgeofImprovement.Allthosebookswerepioneeringinopeningupnew vistas and areas of historical inquiry; yet they have also proved unsur- passable,inthatnoonehasevertreatedthesesubjectsanythinglikeas well as he did when starting them off. And Victorian Cities remains to thisdayanunmatchedtourdeforce,avirtuosocavalcadeofurbanhis- tory and urban life in Britain, and a book that many of us would have givenhalfourworkinglivestohavewritten. The second part of this book salutes Asa as a historian of communi- cations; for as well as being the founding father of Victorian studies, Asahasalsocreatedanentirelynewsubject,namelythehistoryofthe media. Having written enough on the 19th century to exhaust several more than averagely energetic scholars, Asa has simultaneously pro- duced five massive volumes of The History of Broadcasting in the United vii viii Foreword Kingdom, a work which is in part a remarkable institutional study of theBBCitself,butalsoapioneeringforayintoculturalhistoryofmod- ern Britain. Not for nothing was he awarded the Marconi Medal for CommunicationHistory. Butinadditiontobeingamorethanfull-timescholar,researcherand writer, Asa has also been the most significant historian of his genera- tion involved in the expansion and development of higher education in Britain. And so our third section is devoted to Asa as an academic proconsul:asamajorpowerinthepost-warrenaissanceofred-brickuni- versities(atLeeds),asoneofthegreatcreativepersonalitiesestablishing thenewuniversitiesofthe1960s(atSussex),assomeonewhobreathed life and intellectual energy into an ancient university (at Oxford), and as someone who early on saw the potential of a novel and innovative formofhigherlearning(attheOpenUniversity). Theresultingvolumeisfittinglyvariedandappropriatelymany-sided: inpartitisacriticalandin-depthsurveyofasignificantpubliclifeinthe secondhalfofthe20thcentury;inpartitisaninetiethbirthdaypresent to one of the towering figures of our time and our profession; and in partitisathank-offeringfromsomebutbynomeansallofthosewho havebenefitedacrosstheyearsfromtheadviceandtheencouragement whichAsahassofreelygiventosomanyofus.Theachievementisall his,butthegratitude,theadmirationandtheaffectionareallours. DavidCannadine InstituteofHistoricalResearch,UniversityofLondon 13May2014 Acknowledgements TheAgeofAsaisbasedonaone-dayconferenceheldon19May2011at the Institute of Historical Research to mark Lord Briggs’ 90th birthday. IamgratefultotheInstitutestaffwhowereasefficientandwelcoming as always on that memorable day: Elaine Walters, Manjeet Sambi and Carlos Galvis. I would also like to thank my IHR colleagues Jonathan Blaney, Charlotte De Val and Danny Millum for helping with the edit- ing of two of the chapters, and also with the bibliography available on the IHR website. Needless to say, the book would not have been possible without Asa and Susan Briggs, to whom all the authors are especiallygrateful.Wewouldalsoliketothanktheholdersofcopyright materialwhohavegivenpermissionfortheuseofimages,archivalmate- rials and work published elsewhere: the Australian National University Archives, the BBC Written Archives Centre, the University of Chicago Library, University of Leeds Archives, Liverpool University Press, News International,theOpenUniversityandtheUniversityofSussex. ix
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