W. G. HOSKINS

William George Hoskins, CBE FBA (22 May 1908 – 11 January 1992, was an English local historian who was responsible for the first university department of English Local History. His great contribution to the study of history was in the field of landscape history. Hoskins demonstrated the profound impact of human activity on the evolution of the English landscape in a pioneering book: The Making of the English Landscape. His work has had lasting influence in the fields of local and landscape history and historical and environmental conservation.

He was born in Exeter on 22 May 1908 but unlike his father and his grandfather was not destined for the family bakery business, instead he won a scholarship to Hele’s School in 1918, and then went on to attend the University College of South West England where he gained BSc and MSc degrees in economics by the age of 21. 

Hoskins was appointed to a lecturer role in Economics at University College Leicester where he served from 1931-41 and again from 1946-51. He apparently found statistics to be dull lecture material, but he enjoyed the evenings that he spent teaching archaeology and local history at Vaughan College an institution founded in Leicester in 1848 to promote adult education and self-improvement. From 1948 he was Reader in English Local History at Leicester.

His academic research covered historical demography, urban history, agrarian history, the evolution of vernacular architecture, landscape history and local history. He became a member of the Leicestershire Archaeological Society in September 1935.

In 1952, Hoskins resigned from his posts at University College, Leicester, and on the Leicestershire Victoria County History Committee to become Reader in Economic History in the University of Oxford. In his obituary, this was stated to be generally acknowledged as a mistake.

In 1965 before returning to Leicester on the Advisory Committee on Building of Special Architectural Interest until 1964. From 1964 until 1968 he was the Hatton Professor (Emeritus) of English History at Leicester.

He was president of the Dartmoor Preservation Association between 1962 and 1976 and in 1960 he was instrumental in forming the Exeter Group, later to become the Exeter Civic Society of which he was the first chairman. Hoskins was elected to the City Council and campaigned to save Exeter Higher Market from development which forced a rethink on a proposed extension of the inner by-pass across Bull Meadow. He was awarded the CBE in 1971 for services to Local History. 

The remainder of his life was devoted to university teaching and the authorship of historical works. 

The Sunday Times included Hoskins in their 1991 1,000 Makers of the 20th Century. He died on 11th January 1992 at Cullompton, and his ashes were scattered in the meadows of Brampford Speke. The house of his birth displays a blue plaque unveiled by the Civic Society in October 2003 which bears the inscription:

DEVON HISTORY SOCIETY
W.G. HOSKINS CBE FBA DLitt 1908-1992
HISTORIAN OF DEVON, EXETER AND THE ENGLISH LANDSCAPE BORN HERE
‘HIC AMOR, HAEC PATRIA EST'(This is my love, my native land)

His book Devon, a volume that included a gazetteer of all 430 parishes of the county, along with chapters covering the history of the county and its towns, was published in 1954. Some consider it to be the finest modern county history; several of the photos for Devon were taken by F L Attenborough, vice Chancellor of Leicester, and father of David and Richard.