Ruskin, Radicalism and Raphael Samuel: Politics, Pedagogy and the Origins of the History Workshop

Abstract

Despite the profound impact that the History Workshop Movement has had on the postwar British historiographical tradition, the circumstances of the History Workshop�s founding have received surprisingly little scholarly attention. Rather, the bulk of published work has tended to focus on the broader place of the Workshop, or on specific elements such as the rise of the feminist voice in the Workshop community, or the Workshop�s efforts to bring together forms of historical or historically informed inquiry which normally existed in separate spheres. In this article I focus on the circumstances, influences and motivations behind Raphael Samuel�s setting up of the History Workshop at Ruskin College, Oxford, in 1967. I seek to make three main points. First, profound as was the Workshop�s approach to, and notion of, �history from below�, it emerged not in isolation, but as part of a wider attack by social history on British historiography taking place in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Secondly, I seek to highlight the importance of pedagogy as a formative influence on Samuel�s interest in establishing the Workshop. Plugging into this, I lastly make a case for Samuel�s own romanticized perceptions of Ruskin College�s connection to working-class radicalism � both what this had historically been, and what he believed it could be once again � in shaping his determination to radicalize the College curriculum.