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Celebrating Hampshire HistoriansPatterson, Alfred Temple27.11.1902-15.10.1983A native of Northumberland, Patterson obtained a first-class honours degree in history from University of Durham in 1924, having studied for this at Armstrong College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Initially a schoolmaster and later on the staff of Portsmouth Municipal College, during the war years and the immediate post-War period he was head of History at University College Leicester. Here his ‘appetite for local studies’ was whetted and his Radical Leicester: A History of Leicester 1780-1850, published in 1954, ‘was a seminal work which helped to lay the foundations of the University’s pre-eminence in urban history’ (The Times, 27/10/83). He took up a post in the History Department of Southampton University in 1949, where he pursued two main lines of research - regional studies and naval history. He also wrote the centenary volume of the history of the University of Southampton. Appointed a Reader in Regional History in 1960 and Professor in 1967, he retired in 1968. When he died in 1983 he was characterised as the ‘biographer of a city’ (Southern Evening Echo 24/10/1983), while Edwin Course wrote that ‘his death … [was] a [great] loss to Hampshire’ (HFC Newsletter, Vol 1. 1984). Temple Patterson is the subject of a University of Southampton Special Collections blog. Sources
PortraitContribution to county’s historyHe made a threefold contribution. The first was his three volume definitive history of Southampton published in the Southampton Records Series; a second was his inaugural Professorial Lecture entitled ‘Local History and Southampton’; and a third the key role he played in launching the Portsmouth Papers series. Relevant published works
Critical CommentsHis approach to writing history was described as disciplined and restrained and he sought ‘to enable the facts to tell their own story, not … impos[ing] an extraneous interpretation upon them.’ (The Times, 27/10/1983). His history of Southampton was praised as being ‘popularly written but scholarly’ (Southern Evening Echo, 2/07/1970) Other Comments‘Colourful and warm hearted’ were words used to describe his personality. His wife was ‘a well-known student of French literature’ (The Times, 27/10/1983) ContributorRoger Ottewill, 17 October 2021 Key WordsSouthampton, history of Southampton, University of Southampton, local history Any queries or further suggestions for this part of the list should be addressed to celebrating@hantsfieldclub.org.uk.
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