Irene Collins
Historian whose personality contained echoes of her subjects of study – Napoleon and Jane Austen
IRENE COLLINS, who has died aged 89, was a versatile historian who, uniquely, combined contrasting specialisms on Napoleon and Jane Austen. Appointed to a lectureship at the University of Liverpool in 1947, Irene Collins remained there for almost 40 years, becoming Reader in History and Dean of the Faculty of Arts (the first woman to hold that position). Her
book The Government and the Newspaper Press in France, 1814-1881 (1959) won acclaim and was followed by the significant studies Government and Society in France 1814-48 (1970)
and Napoleon and his Parliaments
1800-1815 (1979). Generations of students were grateful for her invaluable textbook The Age of Progress (1964).
In a busy retirement, however, she turned to Jane Austen and in two major works – Jane Austen and the
Clergy (1994) and Jane Austen: The
Parson’s Daughter (1998) – established herself as a major figure in a crowded field. She became vice president of the Jane Austen Society, was a regular attender at Austen conferences and was much in demand as a speaker. Even in the last year of her life she was still publishing on Jane Austen and had completed a chapter on the author for an American symposium.
To an extent Irene Collins’s own personality contained echoes of both Napoleon and Jane Austen. Although she never rode roughshod over others she had a decisive way of proceeding and preferred firm conclusions to sitting on the fence. But like Jane Austen Irene Collins developed a finely tuned writing style that was economical, suggestive and eloquent. She was equally at home in the domestic and public spheres and had a calmness that often came close to serenity.
She was born Irene Fozzard on September 16 1925 at Queensbury, near Halifax, into a working-class family; her father was a joiner. Irene remained a quintessential northerner in outlook and convictions.
She attended Brighouse Girls’ Secondary School before studying History at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, gaining first-class honours in 1946. Her later Oxford BLitt thesis (1951) on governments and the newspaper press in France between 1822 and 1827 was duly expanded into her first monograph six years later. Liverpool University then became her academic base and Brooklands, a Manchester suburb, her home.
She was an excellent lecturer, organising her material in a readily accessible way, and even in later life (when failing eyesight demanded) could hold forth for an hour or so without the aid of notes. Audiences, whether consisting of fellow academics, students or enthusiasts, were won over by her sound sense, relaxed manner and charm.
Irene Collins was no narrow specialist and was a passionate campaigner for the relevance and importance of the study of history in general and for the history department at Liverpool in particular when troubled times came in the 1980s; with characteristic altruism she took early retirement as Reader and Dean in 1986 to save the jobs of younger colleagues.
She became a pillar of the Historical Association, nationally as well as locally, and devoted much time to maintaining part of that body’s original mandate to bring higher education and secondary education into a close and productive working relationship. She gave countless lectures for different association branches up and down the country and published three study pamphlets
under its imprint – Liberalism in Nineteenth-Century Europe (1957), Revolutionaries in Europe 1815-48 (1974), and Recent Historical Novels (1990). She served as national President of the Association in the early 1980s and was awarded that society’s highest achievement award (the Medlicott Medal for services to History) in 1996. She became a Jubilee Fellow of the Association in 2014.
Twelve years earlier, King Alfred’s College, Winchester (now the University of Winchester), conferred on her the title of Honorary Fellow, a distinction she cherished – not least because it brought her into regular contact with “Jane Austen country”.
She married Rex Collins, a textile chemist, in 1951. The couple enjoyed a long and happy marriage, with shared interests in their local church (whose history she wrote about), in reading, music, theatre and travel. Both individually and together they displayed a special gift for friendship and hospitality.
She is survived by her husband and their daughter. Irene Collins, born September 16 1925, died July 12 2015.