Raphael Samuel was a tutor in History at Ruskin College 1962-96. He founded the History Workshops and the History Workshop Journal which grew out of these meetings. Before his death in 1996, he also helped to set up the pioneering MA in Public History at the College.
Samuel was born in London and studied at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was taught by Christopher Hill, who had encouraged him whilst Samuel was still at school to join the Communist Party Historians' Group, which founded the journal Past and Present. His commitment to Communism underwent a radical change in 1956, and, to quote Bill Schwarz, "In place of the Party and its cadres, there emerged a more democratic - and modest - conception of "the people" or the "popular" for whom, and to whom, historians should speak. In place of scriptural truth handed down by the Party, there arose a more imaginative mode of writing, encouraging people to think for themselves about the world as a historical place and challenging that which seemed ordained by nature to be permanent." This change led to the History Workshops, with their focus on worker-historians and oral histories. The workshops were revolutionary, democratic, and their influence immense. Samuel was also a co-founder of the radical Partisan Coffee House in Soho. Finally, in his last year, Samuel was persuaded to apply for a chair at the University of East London, and returned to his beloved city to begin work on a history of East London.
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