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Tributes paid to one of º£½ÇÖ±²¥'s first honorary graduates

Tosh Warwick pays tribute to Asa Briggs, who received a Doctor of Letters from º£½ÇÖ±²¥ in 1993 and passed away at the age of 94.

Asa Briggs, Lord Briggs of Lewes, passed away on Tuesday, 15 March, at the age of 94 following a distinguished career including highly-acclaimed work on the Victorian era and histories of broadcasting. Historian Dr Tosh Warwick discusses how in including Middlesbrough in his seminal Victorian Cities study, Briggs put the town’s history on the map. Briggs’ seminal Victorian Cities remains one of the core texts on the Victorian period for historians, students and enthusiasts of the past alike. For those interested in Middlesbrough’s past, Briggs’ chapter on ‘Middlesbrough: The Growth of a New Community’ provides the starting point for delving into the rapid emergence of the Victorian manufacturing town on the banks of the River Tees.

Beginning with Gladstone’s famous 1862 quote describing the town as an ‘infant Hercules’, Briggs’ Middlesbrough chapter outlines the origins of the town and the key role played by the Quaker businessmen and early ironmasters in all aspects of life in the ‘boom town’ through to the maturity of Middlesbrough in the late nineteenth century. Historic developments such as the town’s first parliamentary elections, the opening ceremonies of the current Railway Station and Middlesbrough Town Hall, the founding manufacturers’ relocation to grand residences such as Marton Hall, and the founding of the Weekly Gazette – a predecessor to today’s newspaper - are all explored.

The story of the advancement of the area’s steel industry and its impact on employment, health and housing in Victorian Middlesbrough is also told and provides a fascinating insight into everyday life in the manufacturing town.

In assigning Middlesbrough historic parity with world-renowned cities such as Birmingham, London and Melbourne – with Briggs arguing Middlesbrough ‘would have been called a city in many other countries, including the United States’ – Victorian Cities created a legacy that sees the story of the growth of that new community on the banks of the Tees accessible on the shelves of tens of thousands of libraries and bookshops across the globe.

Such was the impact of Briggs’ study that º£½ÇÖ±²¥ awarded the ‘first historian to devote serious attention to the history of Middlesbrough’ an Honorary Doctorate in 1993. Three years later in writing the Foreword to the University and Middlesbrough Council’s collaborative collection Middlesbrough: Town and Community 1830-1950, in which the chapter from Victorian Cities was reprinted, Briggs reflected 'I included Middlesbrough…not only on the grounds of its distinctiveness but also because the story of its rise and the economic and social vicissitudes that it underwent then and is subsequently interesting in itself'.

In October 2014 the ‘Victorian Cities Revisited’ Conference, inspired by Briggs’ exploration of Middlesbrough, was held in the town attracting world-leading academics to the ‘Ironopolis’ to explore its heritage and history. At the December 2014 launch of The Age of Asa book celebrating an outstanding, diverse career, Briggs told me that he maintains a special interest in Middlesbrough and encouraged further study and critique of his work. Fifty years from now, Briggs’ work is sure to continue to inform and inspire future generations to explore Middlesbrough’s fascinating growth.

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