A quarter of a century ago, when I first started teaching modern British history, a regular, if minor, correction I made to many an undergraduate essay was to change the gender of Asa Briggs. Confronted by this unusual first name on a book cover, students almost invariably assumed that they were reading the work of a woman. It was a telling error, reflecting a loss of biblical knowledge and the declining fame of the author. Now, I suspect, almost no one reads his work. Certainly my students do not cite him (or her). He has become a figure from history rather than an interpreter of it.

In his day, Briggs was a phenomenon: a peer of the realm, a pioneer of social history, an internationally acknowledged expert on education, a famous vice-­chancellor and a popular provost of Worcester College, Oxford. The complete list of his writings fills thirty-eight close-typed pages and his work ranges from a monumental official history of the BBC to seminal studies of Victorian life. It was said by colleagues that a unit of intellectual energy should be called an ‘Asa’ and that half an Asa was more than enough to power most ordinary people.

His life story was one of conspicuous social and material ascent. Briggs was born in Keighley in 1921; his parents ran a small shop, until it went bust. Near neighbours included Mollie Sugden, star of Are You Being Served?, and Captain Tom Moore, who rose to fame during the coronavirus