I was a postgraduate researcher and aspiring early career
researcher in the 1960s. The context in which I lived and worked was radically
different. After the Robbins Report was published in the autumn of 1963, there
was a rapid expansion of new universities and the creation of a significant
number of history departments across the country.
A cohort of young postgraduates and early career researchers
took up posts in these departments. Unfortunately, the sterling crisis of 1967
brought this process of expansion to an abrupt end. It became much more
difficult for postgraduates like me in the middle of their research to get one
of the few posts being advertised while the new incumbents naturally enough
stayed put.
Looking back, there
were all sorts of issues that I was not aware of at the time. As an
undergraduate, I had been relatively well off: as a postgraduate on c.£500 a
year, I was pretty hard up, especially in comparison with those of my
contemporaries who had got jobs in external professions. I was also only dimly
aware of the importance of patrons in the academic world: I knew that there
were historians who disagreed with one another but had only the faintest idea
of the competition that existed between them to secure posts for their
proteges. Nor was I sensitive to the dangers of criticising established
figures.
When I submitted my first article to The Economic History Review in 1972, Lawrence Stone sent me a very short letter telling me in July of that year that publication would do me no good and that he would see to it that I never got a job. Admittedly, publication as such was less important then: a large number of historians then in post had a minimal number of articles or books to their names, a situation that later research assessment exercises made untenable. There was, moreover, very little and sometimes no guidance on how to teach even though I got some experience in my own university, in the nearby polytechnic and in a technical college. Even so, my sense of despair and disappointment at not being able to get an academic job until the late-1980s was, I suspect, just as intense as that experienced by anyone in the last few years.
But I did not give up. I was lucky enough to be able to keep
in touch through my friends and via contacts in the British Museum, the Public
Record Office and the libraries of the University of London with the
historiography of early modern England and of Europe. I was even able to get
some articles published in academic journals and a volume of essays.
Eventually, I did get an academic post and have been able to move forward to
other roles.
I realise that
postgraduates and early career researchers nowadays have had just as tough,
perhaps even tougher, a time. Universities have a wide range of choice amongst
a plethora of candidates from which to choose. Issues of academic patronage and
publication remain vital. (Avoid my
mistakes too.) If I may comment on the problems postgraduates and early career
researchers face, it is important for them to take of advantage of all the
opportunities that arise in the course of their research.
If a document or set of documents that are of interest crops
up, please think about publication (with the necessary permissions of the
archive or owner) in an academic or local history journal or, if that is not
possible, contact the International Book Numbering Agency and get some of its
numbers so that you can publish it yourself. Most universities and colleges
have printing shops where written pieces can be printed and bound relatively
cheaply.
Secondly, there are
the resources of the internet. It is perfectly possible without too much effort
to use Facebook or Twitter to tell other interested people about the work you
are doing, about the reading you have done, about the contacts you have made.
Successful networking on-line as well as at conferences and seminars is vital
to keep in touch with one’s peers and prospective colleagues. And then there
are weblogs or blogs.
The Many-Headed Monster is a good example of what can be achieved by a group of historians with common interests but there are many other blogs of interest carrying news, reviews, notices of conferences and seminars, etc. I must also add that a significant number of blogs exist that have been composed by independent historians working in other professions but still committed to the subjects they have studied. Here I am thinking of figures like Nick Poyntz or Keith Livesey. It is up to you to exploit the range of available options.
Above all, make sure you complete your research and get your
thesis written. If you can do that and can promote your merits as a scholar in
other ways, then a job should be more likely however stiff the
competition.
