Asa Briggs

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Asa Briggs, Baron Briggs (born 7 May 1921) is a British historian, one of the most respected historians who has written on the Victorian era. In particular, his trilogy, Victorian People, Victorian Cities and Victorian Things made a lasting mark on how historians view the nineteenth century. He was made a life peer in 1976.

Born in Keighley, West Yorkshire in 1921, he was educated at Keighley Grammar School before gaining a BA from Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge in 1941, and a BSc in Economics from the University of London External Programme, also in 1941.

From 1942 to 1945 during World War II, Briggs served in the Intelligence Corps and worked at the British wartime codebreaking station, Bletchley Park. He was a member of "the Watch" in Hut 6, the section deciphering Enigma machine messages from the German Army and Air Force.^[1]

After the War, he was elected a Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford (1945-55) and was subsequently appointed University Reader in Recent Social and Economic History (1950-55). He was Faculty Fellow of Nuffield College 1953-55 and a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Township, New Jersey 1953-54.

From 1955 until 1961 he was Professor of Modern History at the University of Leeds. From 1961 until 1976 he was Professor of History at the University of Sussex, while also serving as Dean of the School of Social Studies (1961-65), Pro Vice-Chancellor (1961-67), and Vice-Chancellor (1967-76).

In 1976 he returned to Oxford to become Provost of Worcester College until 1991.

He was Chancellor of the Open University 1978-1994 and has been an Honorary Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge since 1968, of Worcester College, Oxford since 1969, and of St Catharine's College, Cambridge since 1977. He also held a visiting appointment at the Gannett Center for Media Studies, Columbia University in the late 1980s and again at the renamed Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia in 1995-96. In 1976 he was created a life peer as Baron Briggs, of Lewes in the County of East Sussex.

He has written a five-volume text on the history of broadcasting in the UK (essentially, the history of the BBC) from 1922 to 1974.

He married Susan Anne Banwell in 1955 and they have two sons and two daughters.

[edit] Select bibliography

• The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom (Oxford University Press)
• The Age of Improvement, 1783-1867 (Harlow: Pearson, 1959, 2nd edn 2000)
• The Channel Islands, Occupation and Liberation 1940-1945, Batsford Books, London, ISBN 0-7134-7822-5
• A Social History of England
• Victorian People
• Victorian Cities
• Victorian Things
• Marx in London, An Illustrated Guide

Academic offices
Preceded by Baron Gardiner	Chancellor of the Open University 1978–1994	Succeeded by Betty Boothroyd

[edit] References

fi:Asa Briggs