Harry Dickinson
◆ Distinguished historian of 18th century Britain at the University of Edinburgh
Harry Thomas Dickinson was a distinguished and respected British historian who served as Richard Lodge Professor of History at the University of Edinburgh from 1980 until his retirement in 2006.
To the outside world Harry sometimes appeared as reserved or understated. He could indeed be a man of few words; but those words, invariably framed with care and thought, always counted. And under this professional carapace lay enormous personal warmth, which expressed itself most fully and directly within the love, strength and stability of his family life. His unfailing supportiveness was evident, too, in his many enduring friend ships with academic colleagues and former students.
Born in Gateshead in March 1939, Harry fitted within a northern English – specifically a north eastern – network of 17th and 18th century British political historians. This flourished in universities such as Durham, where (at King’s College) Harry completed his undergraduate and MA work, and at Newcastle, where in 1968 he gained his PHD. Harry had, two years previously, moved across the Scottish border to take up his first permanent lecturing appointment at the University of Edinburgh; and it was here that he spent the remainder of his professional life.
Harry brought very particular qualities to his scholarly field. His chronological and thematic ranges were formidable, spanning the ‘long’ 18th century – from the late 1600s through to the reforms of 1832 and beyond. He moved with equal ease between different genres of history. He was comfortable with individual biographies and regional case studies as well as larger, over-arching, statements. His life of Viscount Bolingbroke (1970) remains the standard work on this complex politician and thinker.
Harry produced essays and case-studies on particular localities, including the North East of England. But his work also embraced all the nations of these islands: he had important things to say about each, and in particular about Scotland.
Harry was, above all, ferociously able, energetic and hard-working and these qualities, when allied with a sharp intellectual vision and ambition, produced some formidably wide-ranging and important work. His Liberty and Property: Political Ideology in Eighteenth-century Britain (1977) and his The Politics of the People in Eighteenth-century Britain (1995) displayed the breadth of his erudition, his command of complex themes and long periods–and his ability to make big statements about the inter connectivity of political life. they remain decisive contributions to historical debate on the shape and content of politics in the 18th century.
Harry produced six single-authored books – works that were acclaimed by reviewers, and which brought him many academic honours, including election to the fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1998. He completed more than 70 articles for learned journals, and many more chapters and shorter contributions.
Harry’s students – as well as the task of reaching out beyond the university – were very much at the heart of his professional vision. After graduating in 1960, Harry had trained as a teacher and had spent three years in the classroom at washington Grammar in Tyne and Wear where, as he would cheerfully recall, one of the pupils was Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music. Throughout his long career, Harry understood the importance of teaching and classroom skills; and he remained concerned with the links between university and school history. He was active within the Historical Association, and held its presidency between 2002 and 2005.
He brought the same dedication to the university lecture theatre and seminar room, where (as on the printed page) he was unfailingly pellucid and well-organised. He inevitably attracted large numbers of research students, whom he supervised selflessly. Indeed, one of his proudest marks of distinction was the presentation in 2016, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his appointment to Edinburgh, of af est schri ft in his honour, liberty, property and Popular Politics, which was very largely the work of his former supervisees.
Latterly, the network of his students–and the communication of his work – became global, with his scholarship being published in 14 countries and seven languages. Harry himself was keen to promote the teaching and understanding of British history internationally: he maintained close scholarly links with many countries. But, of all these, his effort to advance the study of British history in China was the longestlasting and the one closest to his heart.
Harry’s connection with China dated back to the years after the Cultural Revolution, when the teaching of British history had been disrupted and when the relevant books and other study materials had been often destroyed. Harry was central to the reconstruction of the subject at this time and he built up a strong network of students particularly at the Universities of Nanjing and Peking. His achievement was recognised through an honorary appointment at Nanjing in 1987, and through successive invitations to give prestigious lectures, including keynote addresses to the Beijing Forum in 2008 and 2013.
Throughout his career Harry believed in history as a rigorously evidence-based and socially useful discipline. He fought passionately for his subject at Edinburgh – but also nationally and internationally.
In the end, however, there was a symmetry that united Harry’s scholarship and wider being. Harry understood that ideas and convictions mattered both in politics and professional life, and his scholarship and disciplinary leadership reflected that understanding. His vision of 18th century politics was one wherein ideas and principles mattered; but these mattered, too, within his own life and actions. This unity was a marker of Harry’s deep personal and professional integrity.
He is survived by his wife of over 60 years, Elizabeth; by their two children, Mark and Anna; and by five grandchildren.