Robert Colls is Professor of English History at Leicester University,
His main interests are cultural and intellectual history, which he understands to be the study of the special practices and mentalities of a place, or an institution, over time. In recent years, this has taken him into the study of regional and national identities.
Robert is also interested in the history of work, social class and the life and labour of industrial communities.
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Robert Colls was born on 19 August 1949 and brought up in the Laygate area of South Shields. His parents were Bob, a ship repair yard driller, and Margaret, who later became a hospital cleaner. He has a younger brother, Graham, born in 1955.
He attended Laygate Lane infants’ and junior schools. Both were red-brick Victorian board schools, built in 1870. He passed the 11-plus and attended South Shields Grammar-Technical School for Boys from 1960 to 1967. Whilst growing up, he attended Westoe Methodist Young People’s Fellowship where, he says, he learnt to think, and Talbot Road Methodist Youth Club where he learnt to dance.
He went to Sussex University in 1967 to read economics, but switched to history, in which he graduated in 1970. After a year’s Voluntary Service in the Sudan, he began work on a Ph.D in History at the University of York under Professor Gwyn A Williams. His research kept him in his native North East until 1975, when he secured a post at Loughton College of Further Education, Essex. From there he joined Leicester University in 1979, first in the Department of Adult Education, then in the school of Historical Studies, where he is now Professor of English History. He received his Ph.D from York in 1980, though aspects of his doctoral thesis had in part already been published as a book, The Collier’s Rant, in 1977. The Pitmen of the Northern Coalfield followed in 1987.
A common thread in his work is ‘identity’, as both an intellectual and cultural concept, but also as the product of men and women in their history. His work has been greatly influenced by personal and family experience. His long essay ‘When We Lived In Communities’ (Cities of Ideas, 2004) explains the intelligence that sustained industrial communities such as South Shields, and along with ‘English Journeys’ (Prospect July 2007[1]), is the nearest he has come to writing memoir.
The Collier’s Rant concerns the self-image of the 18/19th century northern working class as expressed in the popular songs of the time. Geordies (1992) is a collection of essays, co-edited with Bill Lancaster, to which Colls himself contributed a lengthy piece. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: A modern history (2001), and Northumbria, History and Identity 547-2000 (2007), complete the northern trilogy. Englishness. Politics and Letters 1880-1920 (1986), with Philip Dodd, was first in the new field of studies of national identity, and Colls’ Identity of England (2002) received significant critical acclaim.
Colls has written many articles on broad cultural themes for publications ranging from Past and Present to the Northern Review. He works for radio and television as a presenter and consultant, and brings to this side of his work a lively appreciation of popular culture and sport, influenced both by his understanding of its historical importance and context, but also by his sheer enjoyment of it (e.g. pop music, film, Newcastle United etc).
Quality of scholarship and quality of writing are also characteristics of his work. He has resisted the temptation (to which those involved in study of popular culture are vulnerable) to dilute his own standards of analysis and comment. His writing can be muscular, or lyrical, or amusing, or even tabloid, but it is always to the point. A memoir which brought together his personal and intellectual experiences and reflections, written in his engaging style, would be an attractive prospect.
He has been a Visiting Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford; a Mellon Fellow at Yale; a Fulbright Senior Scholar at Mississippi; a Gambrinus Fellow at Dortmund, and a Leverhulme Senior Research Fellow. He is currently writing a book on the Englishness of George Orwell.
Robert has been married to Rosie since 1973, and they have two daughters Rebecca and Amy.
(editor) Northumbria. History and Identity 547-2000 (Phillimore, 2007) ISBN 978 186077 471 3
(with Richard Rodger), Cities of Ideas: Governance and Citizenship in Urban Britain (Ashgate 2004)
The People's Orwell, in Clare Griffiths, James Nott and William Whyte, eds, Cultures, Classes and Politics. Essays in British History for Ross McKibbin (Oxford 2011)
Gael and Northumbrian. Separatism and regionalism in the UK 1890-1920, in E Storm and J Augusteijn, eds, Nation and Region. Nation-building, regional identities and separatism in 19th century Europe (London 2011)
Letter from North Haven, or what the President should do next, Political Quarterly, 82, 1, Jan-Mar 2011
The Lion and the Eunuch. National Identity and the British Genius, Political Quarterly, 82, 3, July-September 2011
English Journeys , Prospect, July 2007 see all Robert Colls' articles in prospect magazine
Debate on Krishan Kumar's The Making of English National Identity with John Hutchinson, Susan Reynolds, Anthony D Smith, Krishan Kumar Nations and Nationalism, 13, 2, April 2007. pp 179–203.
After Bagehot: Rethinking the constitution, The Political Quarterly, 78, 4, 2007, pp 518–527.
Robert has worked for BBC Radio 4 in Life and Death of Methodism and from Our own Correspondent, plus television The South Bank Show, BBC2 and Who Do You Think You Are?, BBC1