In Memoriam: Theo Barker
Died November 22nd, 2001

When SCARS was in its infancy in 1985, we were grateful for the encouragement of Professors Theo Barker and John Harris, authors of " A Merseyside Town In The Industrial Revolution", which they published together in 1954. Professor Harris, who went to school with Theo, died in 1997, and Professor Barker died recently aged 78. A member of our Executive, Mary Presland, will be attending his Memorial Service on our behalf. Mary has kept in contact with Theo, visiting him and his wife Joy at their Kent home from time to time, and conveying his continuing interest in our activities.

SCARS is also grateful to Professor Barker for his very ready agreement to our request that we might re-publish his 1948 Oxford degree thesis "The Sankey Navigation", which establishes the case for the Sankey as the first Canal of the Industrial Revolution. He helped make that publication (which is due now for a third reprint because of its enduring sales) more attractive by sending us copies of his original photographs. Copied onto slides, they are used frequently by those of us who give talks on the Sankey. In his letter consenting to the reprint, Theo expressed his surprise that this early work of his should be so valued after nearly four decades.

Born in St Helens, Theo went to Cowley School, took a first in history in 1948 at Jesus College, Oxford, and moved to Manchester, where, by 1951, he had completed his PhD. That formed the basis of "Merseyside Town", which was reprinted in 1993. Other books on St. Helens' industrial past include his three on Pilkington's. In 1960, Barker published "Pilkington Brothers And The Glass Industry", which was greatly expanded in 1977 to form "The Glassmakers, Pilkington: 1826 - 1976", and formed the basis of the 1994 "An Age of Glass - An Illustrated History". It established him as the authority on the glassmakers, although his sequel on Pilkington's invention and exploitation of the float process for making sheet glass was never published because of fears that it might endanger their patent. He continued researching into Pilkington's, and was a Consultant for the World of Glass.

After a year at Aberdeen University, in 1953 Barker moved to LSE as lecturer in economic history, becoming founding professor of economic and social history at the new University of Kent in 1964. In 1976, he moved back to LSE, as professor of economic history, and remained there until retirement in 1983. He was probably proudest of his diplomatic achievements, culminating in his presidency of the International Congress of Historical Sciences (1990-95), but he leaves many enduring records of his contributions to transport and business history beyond those concerned with St. Helens.

Space does not allow full details, but he wrote, or collaborated in: the first volume of "A History Of London Transport: The 19th Century" (1963); contributed a third of the 20th-century volume two (1974); " The Transport Contractors Of Rye" (1982), "The Rise And Rise of Road Transport, 1600-1990" (1993): City livery companies "The Carpenters" (1968) and "The Pewterers" (1974); "Our Changing Fare: 200 Years Of British Food Habits" (1966); in retirement he wrote the history of the local brewers, Shepherd Neame. He held office as Chair of the Transport History Research Trust; President of the Railway and Canal Historical Society; founding chairman of the Oral History Society; became secretary of the Economic History Society in 1960, and its president in 1986; and secretary, and later chairman, of the British National Committee of Historians.

His lasting achievement lies in his contributions to the emergence of most of the new departures in social history - women's history excepted - of the second half of the 20th century.

David Long, with information from the GUARDIAN's obituary,
and Mary Presland.