From Scholarship Boy to Social Historian: J.F.C. Harrison (1921-2018): An Appreciation

ABSTRACT

John F. C. Harrison, who has recently passed away, was one of the founders of British social and labour History. Along with figures such as E.P. Thompson and Asa Briggs, Harrison put nineteenth-century social history on the scholarly map. He traced the histories of adult education, Owenism and popular millenarianism. Many came to Victorian history through his textbooks about the period. This appreciation traces his life and work, attempting to establish what was distinctive about his work. Harrison eschewed theory but built important bridges between social, labour and intellectual history which give his work an enduring importance.