Asa Briggs

Asa Briggs (historian, spook)
Born	7 May 1921
Died	15 March 2016 (Age 94)
Nationality	UK
Alma mater	Keighley Boys' Grammar School, Sidney Sussex College (Cambridge), University of London External Programme
Interests	• BBC • Rupert Murdoch
Official BBC historian with significant intelligence ties.  Open University/Chancellor In office 1978 - 1994  Professor of history In office 1961 - 1976 Employer Sussex University  Provost In office 1976 - 1991 Employer Worcester College (Oxford)  Professor of modern history In office 1955 - 1961 Employer Leeds University

Asa Briggs, Baron Briggs was an English historian with significant to the intelligence services. Between 1961 and 1995, Briggs wrote a five-volume series on the history of broadcasting in the UK from 1922 to 1974 – essentially the official history of the BBC, who commissioned the work.

In 1952 he went on a camping holiday around the Middle East together with the future media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, in what was possibly an intelligence operation.

Early life

Asa Briggs was born in Keighley, West Riding of Yorkshire in 1921 to William Briggs, an engineer, and his wife Jane. He was educated at Keighley Boys' Grammar School and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, graduating with a BA (first class) in History, in 1941, and a BSc in Economics (first class) from the University of London External Programme, also in 1941.

Military service

During the Second World War, from 1942 to 1945, Briggs served in the Intelligence Corps and worked at the British wartime codebreaking station, Bletchley Park, in Hut 6, the section deciphering Enigma machine messages from the German Army and Luftwaffe. That posting had arisen because Briggs had played chess at college with Cambridge mathematician Howard Smith (who was to become the Director General of MI5 in 1979), and Smith had written to the head of Hut 6, Gordon Welchman, who was also a Cambridge mathematician, recommending Briggs to him.

"Camping holiday" with Rupert Murdoch

Having close ties to intelligence operatives throughout his career, he went on a "camping holiday" around the Middle East together with the future media tycoon Rupert Murdoch in 1952 - possibly an espionage operation. Briggs writes: "The Turkish police were very suspicious about our doing this."

In Jordan, "King Abdullah had recently been assassinated, upsetting the whole balance of power in the Arab world, and there were many signs of tension in all the places on our journey beyond Turkey, through Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. There were Arabs who thought the name Murdoch was associated with the name Mordecai."
In Lebanon, "We made contact with the father on an Oxford postgraduate student who generously offered to lend us what we needed. We arranged to meet him in the market the following day. Our benefactor did not turn up; he had died in the night. He had arranged for us to have the money, however."

Academic career

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). Whilst a young fellow, Briggs proofread Winston Churchill's A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. He was later faculty fellow of Nuffield College (1953–55) and a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, United States (1953–54).

From 1955 until 1961, he was professor of modern history in Leeds University and between 1961 and 1976 he was professor of history in Sussex University, whilst also serving as dean of the School of Social Studies (1961–65), pro vice-chancellor (1961–67) and vice-chancellor (1967–76). On 4 June 2008, the University of Sussex Arts A1 and A2 lecture theatres, designed by Basil Spence, were renamed in his honour. In 1976, he returned to Oxford to become provost of Worcester College, retiring from the post in 1991.

He was chancellor of the Open University (1978–94) and in May 1979 was awarded an honorary degree as Doctor of the University. He was an honorary fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, from 1968, Worcester College, Oxford, from 1969 and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, from 1977. He held a visiting appointment at the Gannett Center for Media Studies at Columbia University in the late 1980s and again at the renamed Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia in 1995–96.

His socialist sympathies notwithstanding, he joined the ranks of the Establishment, and moved in such exalted company with ease, glorying in the many honours (and the grand houses) that came with his academic posts. Announced in the 1976 Birthday Honours, he was created a life peer as Baron Briggs, of Lewes in the County of East Sussex on 19 July 1976.

Briggs was a leading specialist on the Victorian era.

Between 1961 and 1995, Briggs wrote a five-volume series on the history of broadcasting in the UK from 1922 to 1974 – essentially the history of the BBC, who commissioned the work. Briggsm with his intellgence background during the war, "knew that institutions needed to keep their secrets."

Briggs' other works ranged from an account of the period that Karl Marx spent in London to the corporate history of British retailer Marks and Spencer. In 1987, Lord Briggs was invited to be President of the Brontë Society, a literary society established in 1893 in Haworth, near Keighley, Yorkshire. He presided over the Society's centenary celebrations in 1993 and continued as President until he retired from the position in 1996. He was also President of the William Morris Society from 1978 to 1991 and President of the UK's Victorian Society from 1986 until his death.

He died at home in Lewes at the age of 94 on 15 March 2016.

Personal life

He married Susan Anne Banwell of Keevil, Wiltshire in 1955; the couple had two sons and two daughters.

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References

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