Asa Briggs: The Last Victorian Improver

Tristram Hunt MP tracks the life's work of the historian Asa Briggs, who was instrumental in the founding of the University of Sussex and the Open University.

By the time of his death, Asa Briggs had come a long way.

From a childhood helping run his dad's struggling shop in Depression-era West Yorkshire, he began his career at amazing speed. At 16, he arrived at Cambridge University from his grammar school. At 21, he was cracking codes at Bletchley Park. In 1945, he turned down the offer of a safe Labour seat. In his late twenties, he had a fellowship at Oxford. In 1951, he went on a road trip round Syria and Turkey with a young student of his - Rupert Murdoch.

Briggs became the official historian of the BBC, where he learned to run institutions - and then grabbed the chance to build one himself. At the new University of Sussex, he was there from the start, helping to make it the most visible of the new universities of the 1960s. And then he played a major role in shaping the Open University.

In this programme, Tristram Hunt explores the energetic life of one of his heroes. He argues that Briggs was steeped in the Victorian era.

First, through his Victorian grandfather, who took him on tours of the architectural glories of the North of England.

Second, Briggs was a leading historian of the Victorian era, and played a huge role in rescuing it from negative stereotypes.

But third, Asa Briggs was a Victorian himself - in the sense that he wanted to sustain their great effort to improve life. His mission to open up access to education modernised and built on the Victorians' legacy.

With: Dan Briggs, Jean Seaton, David Kynaston, Miles Taylor, Bill Cash MP.

Produced by Phil Tinline in association with the Open University.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2017.

Show less