ASA BRIGGS. Born in Keighley, Yorkshire, U.K. 7 May 1921. Attended Keighley Grammar School; Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, 1941; First Class BSc (Economics), University of London, 1941. Married Susan Anne Banwell in 1955; children: Katharine, Daniel, Judith and Matthew. Served in Intelligence Corps, 1942-45. Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, 1945-55; professor of history, Leeds University, 1955-61; professor of history and vice-chancellor, Sussex University, 1961-66; provost, Worcester College, Oxford, 1976-91; chancellor, Open University, Milton Keynes, 1979-94. Created Baron Briggs of Lewes, East Sussex, 1976. President: Social History Society, from 1976; Victorian Society, from 1983; The Ephemera Society, from 1984; British Association for Local History, 1984-86; Association of Research Associations, 1986-88. Chairman: Standing Conference for Study of Local History, 1969-76; European Institute of Education and Social Policy, Paris, 1975-90; Commonwealth of Learning, Vancouver, 1988-93; Advisory Board for Redundant Churches, 1983-89. Governor: British Film Institute, 1970-77. Trustee: Glyndebourne Arts Trust, 1966-91; International Broadcasting Institute, 1968-87; Heritage Education Group, 1976-86; Civic Trust, 1976-86. Member: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1970. Fellow: Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, 1968; Worcester College, Oxford, 1969; St Catherine's College, Cambridge, 1977; British Academy, 1980. Numerous honorary degrees. Recipient: Marconi Medal for Communication History, 1975; Médaille de Vermeil de la Formation, Fondation de l'Académie d'Architecture, 1979; Royal College of Anaesthetists Snow Medal, 1991. Address: The Caprons, Keere Street, Lewes, Sussex, U.K.

PUBLICATIONS (selected)

History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom, five vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961-95.

Governing the BBC. London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1979.

The BBC: The First Fifty Years, with Joanna Spicer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.

The Franchise Affair: Creating Fortunes and Failures in Independent Television. London: Hutchinson, 1986.

 

 

Asa Briggs is the most important broadcasting historian in Britain, and has, in the process of writing his accounts of this feature of modern British social history, become a powerful advocate for the continuation of the British Broadcasting Company (BBC).

A Victorian historian of considerable note, Asa Briggs began his great work The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom in the 1960s. The first volume entitled Birth of Broadcasting was published in 1961, and contained a marvelously evocative description of the birth of the BBC and of its founder John Reith, through 1927. The second volume Golden Age of Wireless, published in 1965, covered the period from 1927 to 1939, and received very favorable reviews. Volume Three War of Words covered the war years 1939 to 1945. The fourth volume entitled Sound and Vision covered the period 1945 to 1955, and the final volume Competition brought the story from the end of the BBC monopoly in 1955 to the mid-1970s.

Because Independent Television was not created until 1955, Briggs is primarily a historian of the BBC. However, in 1985 Briggs was commissioned by the ITV companies to write with Joanna Spicer an account of the way the Independent Broadcasting Authority organized awarding franchises in 1980. In this book The Franchise Affair his normal Olympian detachment from the politics of broadcasting was dropped in a fascinating and often critical account of the development of independent TV. Cynics pointed out that Briggs had been a director of Southern Television, one of only two companies whose franchise was arbitrarily removed in 1980. The Franchise Affair was published by Hutchinson, a wholly owned subsidiary of London Weekend Television, which was re-awarded its franchise.

Created Baron Briggs of Lewes in 1976, Briggs is often seen as an establishment figure keen on preserving the status of the BBC. But readers of his 1985 compilation volume The BBC: The First 50 Years were delighted to find that Briggs was not uncritical of the organization that had been sponsoring his mammoth History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom over so many years, and paying for his offices in London.

Perhaps Briggs' greatest contribution to British broadcasting may not be his history books; it could be his role as Chancellor of the Open University from 1978 to 1994, a non-residential institution which provides primary contacts with its students through radio and television broadcast. The Open University has grown to become a major educational institution, awarding degrees for low fees, while maintaining high intellectual standards. Briggs has spent some of his prodigious energies fostering the growth of similar Open Universities of the Air in countries of the British Commonwealth.

As a member of the Campaign for Quality Television, Briggs has been a great defender of the BBC's Charter, which came up for renewal in 1996. Thanks to the many defenders of the BBC's position in British society, and not least to the Campaign for Quality Television, the BBC has had its charter renewed for a further 15. Briggs is well satisfied with the result. Thanks to his influence, perhaps in the future some historian will be able to write a history of the First Hundred Years of the BBC. Briggs' contribution to broadcasting is that of historian and advocate. He has skillfully narrated the story of the most important of all British media enterprises.

-Andrew Quicke