‘The Indefatigable Asa Briggs’ by Adam Sisman

Definitely one of my top reads of 2025. Adam Sisman’s biographies of historians are all just so so good. They are structurally conventional, yet anything but dry. I remember being completely unable to put down his book about Hugh Trevor Roper, and the A.J.P Taylor one was pretty compelling too. This one was just as good.

Asa Briggs (1921 - 2016) was born and brought up in Keighley, Yorkshire. His father was an unsuccessful shopkeeper trying to scrape a living during the depression years, so the family were not at all well-off. Asa was very bright indeed and able to benefit fully from the wonders of a grammar school education.

He was studying history at Cambridge when the second world war started and was able to complete his degree (first class honours of course) before joining the armed forces. He was fortunate because the London School of Economics temporarily relocated to Cambridge at this time, allowing him to sign up to study Economics simultaneously, and so in 1941 he graduated with two firsts in different subjects from different universities. Quite the feat.

Later he broke codes at Bletchley Park, before considering and rejecting the possibility of a political career, and settling down (as far as he can ever be said to have done such a thing) to life as a history don. He started out at Worcester College in Oxford, then moved to Leeds as a professor, before becoming Deputy VC (and later VC) of the newly-established Sussex University in the 1960s. He later capped it all with the provostship of Worcester and the Chancellorship of the Open University.

Throughout he was extraordinarily industrious and prolific. He combined big administrative roles in universities with the publication of dozens of books aimed mainly at a general readership. He focused in the main on nineteenth century Britain – being a major figure in the post-war revival of interest in and respect for the Victorians. But he also wrote a huge five volume history of broadcasting in the UK and numerous essays on all kinds of different topics.

These are my favourite quotes from Adam Sisman’s book (pages 222 – 224):

His colleagues remarked that he had a lot on his plate. He aimed to write 1,500 publishable words every day, no matter what other commitments he had… Asa was quick and concise in his interactions. He was impatient with formalities and became notorious for bypassing procedures. He was exasperated by time-wasting … He tried to avoid meetings when he knew in advance what would be said. He became frustrated when other people did not operate at the same speed and brevity… He was informal in his manner and egalitarian in his attitude… But although always impatient, Asa was seldom angry. In public his demeanour was invariably affable and polite, though he did have periodic outbursts of temper at home… He was exceedingly careful in what he said to whom, not wanting to appear critical of others, even if only by implication. It was not that he did not find some people unimaginative or wrong-headed, but he preferred to emphasise the positive, not the negative.

Some years later Asa would be invited by the Daily Mail to share with readers ten ‘truths’ that life had taught him. The succeed, Asa said, ‘you need physical vim, creative impulse, mental and physical staying power, and above all you must be willing to take risks.’ He summed up his overall philosophy: ‘Leap in the dark rather than stick in the mud’.

What a man. What a role model.

As with so many biographies, the last chapters are inevitably pretty sad. Asa Briggs lived on into his nineties and kept on working as hard as he was able to. But declining mental and physical health inevitably started to take their toll, while a new generation of academics arrived on the scene with different values and views happy to replace him and his wonderful ilk.

A mighty enjoyable read.