(1st May 2011)
It is with great sadness that we have to report the death of Mark Holloway, a former PhD student in our department. Mark died peacefully from multiple organ failure on the afternoon of Wednesday 27th April 2011. We will remember Mark with much affection. At this sad time, we send our thoughts and support to Mark's family and friends, and most particularly to his wife, Jenny
(From March '09)
'The Day the World Fell Down and a Butterfly Flapped its Wings' is the title of an essay by Ron Weir who very sadly died on Saturday, 14 March 2009. From ‘Living Economic and Social History’, a book of essays marking the 75th Anniversary of the Economic History Society, Ron talks about his academic journey and his interview at the University in February 1969 and his subsequent appointment.
We will all remember Ron in many ways: his commitment to students and the university over 40 years, his wisdom and his wit and his sense of history.
Ron ended his essay by remembering his first day on 1 October 1969 when he was introduced to other economic historians. The first was Tony Harrison who greeted him with ‘Oh God, not another bloody Scot. Welcome to York’.
(From November '04)
The Centre for Historical Economics and Related Research at York is saddened to note the death of Professor Charles Feinstein on 27th November 2004. As a group and individually we feel the tremendous loss – of a friend to York, as a pioneer of economic history and as an inspiration to us in our endeavors to seek research and teaching excellence in economic history.
Charles will be remembered as a scholar of awesome intellectual ability, but also as a friend and colleague who inspired generations of economic historians not only in the UK but also throughout the world. On an academic level, we wish to acknowledge his role in establishing York as one of, if not the key centre of excellence in our discipline during his tenure here as Chair of Recent Economic and Social History (1978 to 1987), and his continued interest in the discipline at York after his move to Oxford in 1987.
Charles Feinstein’s work set the tone and standard for generations of economic historians. His signal works, ‘National Income, Expenditure and Output of the United Kingdom 1855-1965’(1972) and ‘British Economic Growth 1856-1973’ (1982), based on an awesome ability to interpret, collect and amass a wide body of statistical information, still provide the basics for most work on the modern economy today. His work on wages in the late nineteenth century reinvented our interpretation of economic decline. In so doing, Charles provided the basic framework which underpinned some of the most important contributions to our understanding of the changing fortunes of the British economy – and of its peoples – over time.
Charles will be missed. He was never the 'high and mighty' Professor – but ever the enthusiastic supporter and mentor for younger, junior colleagues. Charles had an uncanny ability to bring out the best in people – undoubtedly because he himself was one of the best of men.