Kevin Jefferys

Teaching interests

Current and previous teaching responsibilities include:

1st year BA module: Workshop: What is History?

2nd year BA module: Modern Ireland since 1900

 2nd year BA module: Oral History

3rd year BA module: British Politics and Society 1940-70

3rd year BA module: Dissertation (module coordinator and supervisor)

MA module: Biography and Politics in Twentieth-Century Britain

MA module: Key Debates and Research Methods in History

MA Module: Sport and Society in Britain since c.1880

 

Staff serving as external examiners

Exeter University: MPhil History (1995)

Sussex University: DPhil History (2004)

Exeter University: PhD History (2009)

 

Research interests
British political and social history since 1939, including the Second World War, the development of the Labour party and popular politics; also the history of sport in Britain during the twentieth century. 

Other research

General Editor, ‘Documents in Contemporary History’, Manchester University Press book series including the following titles:

R. Ovendale (ed.), British Defence Policy since 1945 (1994)

S. Brooke (ed.), Reform and Reconstruction. Britain 1945-51 (1995)

A. Booth (ed.), British Economic Development since 1945 (1995)

S. Greenwood (ed.), Britain and European Integration since 1945 (1996)

W. Scott Lucas (ed.), Britain and Suez (1996)

H. L. Smith, Britain in the Second World War. A Social History (1996)

S. Fielding (ed.), The Labour Party. Socialism and Society since 1951 (1997)

J. Baylis (ed.), Anglo-American Relations since 1945 (1997)

C. Wrigley (ed.), British Trade Unions since 1945 (1997)

S. Ball (ed.), The Conservative Party since 1945 (1998)

R. J. Aldrich (ed.), Espionage, Security and Intelligence 1945-70 (1998)

R. Negrine (ed.), Television and the Press since 1945 (1998)

P. Panayi (ed.), The Impact of Immigration (1999)

K. Ruane (ed.), The Vietnam Wars (2000)

M. Jones and R. Lowe (eds), From Beveridge to Blair. The First Fifty Years of Britain’s Welfare State 1948-1998 (2002)

 

Research degrees awarded to supervised students

Simon Rippingale – PhD awarded 1996

Nicholas Patch – PhD awarded 1998

Amy Williams – PhD awarded 2001

Paul Lambe – PhD awarded 2003

Janet Setterington - PhD awarded 2005

Anthony Cumming - PhD awarded 2006

Andy Holborn - PhD awarded 2009

Tom Keene - PhD awarded 2011

 

Grants & contracts

External Awards

• Nuffield Foundation (1996): £4915 for political biography of Anthony Crosland (Richard Cohen Books, 1999)

• British Academy (1997-8): £6218 for Crosland biography

• ESRC (2000-3): £135,000 for ‘Local Electoral Participation’ (co-applicant with Professors Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher of Plymouth University)

• AHRB (2002-5): £103,824 for ‘Historical database of twentieth century local elections in Great Britain’ (co-applicants Rallings and Thrasher)

 

Creative practice & artistic projects

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Publications

1. Books

* (ed.), Labour and the Wartime Coalition: from the Diary of James Chuter Ede 1941-45 (The Historians’ Press, 1988), 238 pp.

* The Churchill Coalition and Wartime Politics 1940-1945 (Manchester University Press, 1991; paperback edn. 1995), 244 pp.

* The Attlee Governments 1945-1951 (Longman, 1992), 95 pp.

* The Labour Party since 1945 (Macmillan, 1993), 161 pp.

* (ed.), War and Reform. British Politics during the Second World War(Manchester University Press, 1994), 171 pp.

* Retreat from New Jerusalem: British Politics 1951-64 (Macmillan, 1997), 243 pp.

* Anthony Crosland (Richard Cohen Books, 1999), 270 pp. [Politico’s pbk., 2000 & 2008]

* (ed.), Leading Labour: From Keir Hardie to Tony Blair (I. B. Tauris, 1999), 236 pp.

* (ed.), Labour Forces: From Ernest Bevin to Gordon Brown (I. B. Tauris, 2002), 258 pp.

* Finest and Darkest Hours. The Decisive Events in British Politics from Churchill to Blair (Atlantic Books, 2002), 352 pp. [pbk. edn., 2003]

* Politics and the People. A History of British Democracy since 1918 (Atlantic Books, 2007), 324 pp.

2. Book Chapters

‘The Attlee Governments’, in P. Catterrall (ed.), Britain 1918-51(Heinemann, 1994), pp. 106-12.

‘The Attlee Years 1935-55’, in B. Brivati and R. Heffernan (eds), The Labour Party. A Centenary History (Macmillan, 2000), pp. 68-86.

‘Social Class, Affluence and Electoral Politics, 1951-64’ in S. James and V. Preston (eds), British Politics since 1945. The Dynamics of Historical Change (Palgrave, 2001), pp. 51-76.

‘The Old Right’, in R. Plant, M. Beech and K. Hickson (eds), The Struggle for Labour’s Soul: Understanding Labour’s Political Thought since 1945 (Routledge, 2004, pp. 68-85)

‘Labour in Opposition, 1951-64’, in P. Dorey (ed), The Labour Governments 1964-70 (Routledge, 2006, pp. 4-23)

3. Journal Articles

‘R. A. Butler, the Board of Education and the 1944 Education Act’, History, 69, 227 (1984), pp. 415-31.

‘British Politics and Social Policy during the Second World War’, The Historical Journal, 30, 1 (1987), pp. 123-44.

‘May 1940: the Downfall of Neville Chamberlain’,  Parliamentary History, 10, 2 (1991), pp. 363-78.

‘British Politics and the Road to 1964’, Contemporary Record,9, 1, (1995), pp. 120-46.

'Fred Perry and British Tennis: "Fifty Years to Honor a Winner"', Sport in History, 29, 1 (2009), pp. 1-24.

'The Heyday of Amateurism in Modern Lawn Tennis', International Journal of the History of Sport, 26, 15 (2009), pp. 2236-52.

'The Triumph of Professionalism in World Tennis: The Road to 1968', International Journal of the History of Sport, 26, 15 (2009), pp. 2253-89.


4. Short Articles

‘The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp’, The Historian, 21 (1988-89), pp. 7-8.

Entries on: Barbara Castle, Anthony Crosland, Richard Crossman and James Chuter Ede, in K. Robbins (ed.), The Blackwell Biographical Dictionary of British Political Life in the Twentieth Century (Basil Blackwell, 1990), pp. 87-8, 111-14 and 132.

‘The Attlee Governments 1945-51’, Modern History Review, 5, 3 (1994), pp. 29-31.

‘It’s a Tough Old World for a Tory in No. 10’, Parliamentary Brief, 3, 7(1995), p. 83.

‘Rebuilding Post-war Britain: Conflicting Views of the Attlee Governments,1945-51’, New Perspective, 3, 3 (1998), pp. 31-4.

‘Winston Churchill and the Wartime Coalition 1940-45’, History Review, 32 (1998), pp. 44-9.

‘Affluence and Decline: The Conservatives in Power 1951-64’, New Perspective, 7, 1 (2001), pp. 32-5.

Entries on: William Whiteley and Emanuel (‘Manny’) Shinwell, in G. Rosen (ed.), Dictionary of Labour Biography (Politico’s Publishing, 2001), pp. 515-17 & 605-7.

Entry on: Manny Shinwell, in I. Dale (ed.), The Politico’s Book of the Dead (Politico’s Publishing, 2003), pp. 81-4.

Entry on: Anthony Crosland, in D. Rutherford (ed), Biographical Dictionary of British Economists (Thoemmes Press, 2004, pp. 171-2).

Entries on: James Chuter Ede, George Tomlinson and Henry Willink, in H. C. G. Matthew and B. Harrison (eds) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 17, pp. 658-60, vol. 54, pp. 941-3 and vol. 59, pp. 370-1 (Oxford University Press, 2004).

Entry on: George Brown, in K. Gildart and D. Howell (eds), Dictionary of Labour Biography, Vol. XII (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 45-56.

'Tony Crosland, The Future of Socialism and New Labour', History Review, 54 (2006), pp. 35-6.



5. Review Articles

‘Rethinking Labour’, Parliamentary History, 10, 1 (1991), pp. 221-3.

‘Harold Wilson’, Contemporary Record, 7, 1 (1993), pp. 198-200.

‘Perspectives on Postwar Britain’, Twentieth Century British History, 4, 3 (1993), pp. 297-301.

6. Book Reviews

Barbara Castle, ‘Fighting All the Way’; Eric Heffer, 'Never a Yes Man', Contemporary Record, 7, 3 (1994), pp. 704-6.

J. Fryth (ed.), ‘Labour's High Noon’, History, 80, 259 (1995), pp. 343-4.

S. Lawlor, ‘Churchill and the Politics of War’, Albion, 27, 4 (1995), pp. 717-18.

H. Jones and L. Butler (eds), ‘Britain in the Twentieth Century’, Contemporary British History, 10, 1 (1996), pp. 257-9.

D. Childs, ‘Britain since 1939. Progress and Decline’, History, 82, 266 (1997), pp. 373-4.

H. Jones and M. Kandiah (eds), ‘The Myth of Consensus’, Contemporary British History, 11, 1 (1997), pp. 157-8.

J. Tomlinson, ‘Democratic Socialism and Economic Policy’, English Historical Review, CXIII, 452 (1998), pp. 800-1.

K. O. Morgan, ‘Callaghan. A Life’, Twentieth Century British History, 9, 3 (1998), pp. 446-8.

M. Cronin (ed), ‘The Failure of British Fascism’, Political Studies, XLVI (1998), pp. 379-80.

R. Pearce, ‘Attlee’, Labour History Review, 64, 1 (1999), p. 100-1.

R. Mackay, ‘The Test of War. Inside Britain 1939-45’, History, 85, 278 (2000), p. 377.

K. Laybourn (ed), ‘Modern Britain. A Reader’, Contemporary British History, 14, 1 (2000), pp. 179-81.

D. Tanner, P. Thane and N. Tiratsoo (eds), ‘Labour’s First Century’, Twentieth Century British History, 12, 3 (2001), pp. 386-7.

D. Tanner, C. Williams and D. Hopkin (eds), ‘The Labour Party in Wales 1900-2000’, Welsh History Review, 20, 4 (2001), pp. 783-5.

S. Davies and B. Morley, ‘County Borough Elections in England and Wales, 1919-38’, Volume 2, ‘Bradford-Carlisle’, Urban History, 29, 3 (2002), pp. 457-9.

R. Toye aand J. Gottlieb (eds), 'Making Reputations. Power, Persuasion and the Individual in Modern British Politics', Twentieth Century British History, 17, 2 (2006), pp. 290-2.

J. Stapleton, 'Sir Arthur Bryant and National History in Twentieth Century Britain', History, 93, 1 (2008), p. 94.

D. Marquand, 'Britain Since 1918. The Strange Career of British Democracy', English Historical Review, CXXIV, 509 (2009), pp. 1003-05.

A. Thorpe, 'Parties at War. Political Organisation in Second World War Britain', Reviews in History, 780 (2009).

Heiner Gillmeister (ed.), ‘From Bonn to Athens – Single and Return. The Diary of John Pius Boland, Olympic Champion Athens 1896’; Jon Henderson, ‘The Last Champion. The Life of Fred Perry’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 27, 4 (2010), pp. 712-15.

 Caroline Seebohm, ‘Little Pancho. The Life of Tennis Legend Pancho Segura’, Sport in History, 30, 4 (2010), pp. 608-10.

 Paul J. Deveney, ‘Callaghan’s Journey to Downing Street’, Journal of British Studies, 51, 1 (2012), pp. 226-7.

 

 

Reports & invited lectures

Conference papers include:

‘The Making of Britain’s Postwar Settlement’, Institute of Contemporary British History Conference, London School of Economics, July 1991

‘Wartime Politics and the Road to 1945’, Britain and the Second World War Conference, Oxford University, February 1992

‘Social Class and Electoral Politics 1951-64’, Institute of Contemporary British History Conference [British History 1945-95. The State of the Art], Queen Mary and Westfield College, July 1995

‘Crosland and Revisionism’, Fabian Society Conference – Celebrating the Centenary: 100 Years of the Labour Party, January 2000

‘The winter of discontent re-visited’, Political Studies Association Conference, Bristol University, July 2002

'British tennis and the road to 1968', British Society of Sports History Conference, Stirling University, July 2009

 

Conferences organised

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Additional information
I'm currently researching into the relationship between sport and politics in post-war Britain, with a view to publishing a monograph on this topic to coincide with the London Olympics of 2012. 

Links

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