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Richard Hoggart was born in Leeds in 1918. Educated at Cockburn High School and the University of Leeds he served in the British Army during the Second World War.

In 1946 he became a tutor at the University of Hull. Later he lectured in English at the University of Leicester and the University of Birmingham. In 1964 he established the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham.

In 1957 Hoggart published The Uses of Literacy: Aspects of Working Class Life (1957). Nicholas Wroe has argued: "The publication of The Uses of Literacy in 1957 propelled Richard Hoggart, then an extramural lecturer at the University of Hull, to the forefront of the changes that swept British culture from the sclerotic 1950s into the swinging 60s. The book was a groundbreaking study of working-class culture and a critical appraisal of the changes wrought by the commercial forces... Not only did it anticipate the opening-up of the cultural landscape, it also contributed to a critical and popular climate far more receptive to the subsequent explosion of books, films and art about working-class subjects by working-class artists."

Other books by Hoggart include The Critical Movement (1964), Speaking to Each Other (1970), Only Connect (1972), Speaking to Each Other (1973), An Idea and Its Servants: UNESCO from Within (1978), An English Temper (1982), An Idea of Europe (1987), A Local Habitation: Life and Times 1918-40 (1989), An Imagined Life: Life and Times 1959-91 (1992), A Measured Life (1994), The Way We Live Now (1995), First and Last Things (2001), Everyday Language and Everyday Life (2003), Mass Media in a Mass Society (2005) and Promises to Keep (2006).

Hoggart was replaced by Stuart Hall as director of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in 1968. Hoggart was also Assistant Director-General of UNESCO (1971-1975), Warden of Goldsmiths College (1976-1984) and a member of the Arts Council of Great Britain.

^ Main Article ^

(1) Nicholas Wroe, The Guardian (7th February, 2004)

The publication of The Uses of Literacy in 1957 propelled Richard Hoggart, then an extramural lecturer at the University of Hull, to the forefront of the changes that swept British culture from the sclerotic 1950s into the swinging 60s. The book was a groundbreaking study of working-class culture and a critical appraisal of the changes wrought by the commercial forces - "publications and entertainments" as he puts it in the subtitle - that impinge upon it. Not only did it anticipate the opening-up of the cultural landscape, it also contributed to a critical and popular climate far more receptive to the subsequent explosion of books, films and art about working-class subjects by working-class artists. Hoggart soon found himself well placed to make important interventions that helped remake the cultural landscape. He was the driving force behind the Pilkington committee, which eventually led to the founding of BBC2. More dramatically, he was the star defence witness at the Lady Chatterley obscenity trial.

"Richard Hoggart was a hero of the liberal literary intelligentsia in the 1960s," recalls David Lodge, who worked under him as a young lecturer at Birmingham University. "Uses of Literacy is still in print and is still studied and read, but in those days it was a kind of Bible for first-generation university students and teachers who had been promoted by education from working-class and lower middle-class backgrounds into the professional middle class." Such was the seismic impact of the book that it is not surprising that Hoggart has not produced anything quite like it since. But he has continued to offer principled critique of contemporary culture as a writer, administrator, academic and committee man. His observations on the state of public broadcasting remain trenchant. Hoggart is a lifelong member of the Labour party but recently considered resigning over "something most people would regard as negligible. I thought the government's attitude towards the Communications bill was quite inadequate and I do wish there was a George Orwell around who could burn Blair's jacket politically and intellectually." In a Guardian article he called the bill "one of the most ill-conceived legislative proposals for many decades that would continue wrecking one of our major cultural achievements of the last century, that of creating a sound, independent democratic structure for broadcasting". He drew on Ezra Pound, RH Tawney and Shakespeare to reinforce his argument and compared "vapid programmes" to "mild drugs" in that they have "increasingly to spice themselves up" - to beat the competition rather than make better programmes.