Bernard Crick

Sir Bernard Crick
Born	(1929-12-16)16 December 1929 England
Died	19 December 2008(2008-12-19)(aged 79) Edinburgh,Scotland
Academic background
Education	University College London(B.Sc.) London School of Economics(PhD)
Academic work
Institutions	London School of Economics University of Sheffield Birkbeck College, University of London Glasgow University

Sir Bernard Rowland Crick(16 December 1929 – 19 December 2008)was a Britishpolitical theoristanddemocratic socialistwhose views can be summarised as "politics is ethics done in public". He sought to arrive at a "politics of action", as opposed to a "politics of thought" or of ideology, and he held that "political power is power in thesubjunctive mood."He was a leading critic ofbehaviouralism.

Career

Crick was born in England, the son of Harry Edgar and Florence Clara Crick, and educated atWhitgift School.He read Economics atUniversity College London,obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree, before transferring to theLondon School of Economicsfor doctoral study. While working on hisPh.D.—published in 1958 asThe American Science of Politics—he was a Teaching Fellow at Harvard (1952–1954), Assistant Professor at McGill (1954–1955), and Visiting Fellow at Berkeley (1955–1956).Returning to the United Kingdom in 1956, he obtained his Ph.D. at the LSE and was appointed to an Assistant and later a Senior Lectureship, 1957–1965.

During his period at the LSE, recollections of which appear in his contribution toMy LSE,Crick craved for greater recognition than his Senior Lecturership signified. LSE's promotion system was notoriously slow at the time. When appointed Professor of Political Theory and Political Institutions at Sheffield in 1965, Crick toldBeaver,the LSE student newspaper, that he was "going to a better place from the point of view of teaching students".

Crick was an advisor to BritishLabour PartyleaderNeil Kinnockduring the 1980s. When Labour came to power in 1997, Crick was appointed by his former studentDavid Blunkettto head up an advisory group oncitizenship education.The group's final reportin 1998, known as the Crick Report,led to the introduction of citizenship as a core subject in theNational Curriculum.He was knighted in the 2002new years honours listfor "services to citizenship in schools and to political studies".He authored the 2004 Home Office bookLife in the United Kingdom:A Journey to Citizenship,which forms the basis for the newcitizenship testrequired by all people naturalising as British citizens.

He taught at theUniversity of Sheffield(1965–1971).and founded a Department of Politics and Sociology, later the Department of Politics, atBirkbeck College, University of Londonin 1972.

Crick co-authored, withDavid Millar,an influential pamphlet entitledMaking Scotland's Parliament Work.Later in his life in Scotland, Crick was delighted to be appointed Stevenson Visiting Professor atGlasgow University.Despite his frail health at that time, Crick delivered a series of widely praised and very popular public lectures. Upon his death, Glasgow University marked his contribution by establishing the Bernard Crick Memorial Lecture.

Crick made many other contributions to Scottish political life, from participating in his local Labour Party, to defending Glenogle Baths from closure, to, in his last weeks of life, penning a humorous Op-Ed forThe Scotsmanon the chaos caused by the tram line delays in Edinburgh.

Private life

Crick died fromprostate cancerat the age of 79, in St. Columba's Hospice,Edinburgh.It had been diagnosed about fourteen years earlier.

Awards and legacy

The PSA also created the Sir Bernard Crick Awards for Outstanding Teaching in honour of Crick and his work. Two awards are made at the PSA Annual Conference, the Main Prize, and a New Entrant Prize for early career academics.

Crick was knighted in 2002.

After his death, the University of Sheffield established the Sir Bernard Crick Centre. The centre aims to 'Bridge a number of gaps that appear to have emerged in recent decades (if not before). The first gap concerns the relationship between the governors and the governed in democratic countries.'The centre also aims to communicate social science to the public – or the social implications of 'hard' scientific advances – without, in doing so, losing those elements of scholarship that provide depth and context.

Glasgow University also recognised Sir Bernard's contribution by establishing an annual memorial lecture series.

Work on George Orwell

In 1974, Crick began working on a biography ofGeorge Orwellwith the help of Orwell's second wifeSonia Brownell.The hardback edition rights were used to set up a grant in conjunction withBirkbeck Collegeto fund projects by new writers that would have interested Orwell. In 1980, just before the book was published, a friend of Crick's,David Astor,agreed to match the grant. Over the years, there were contributions byRichard Blair,Orwell's adopted son, andThe Observernewspaper, among others. Due to a lack of discernible projects, after five years the fund was diverted to produce an annual memorial lecture at Birkbeck College and theUniversity of Sheffield,and also to provide small departmental grants. The lectures continue: they are now hosted each year by the Orwell Foundation (originally established by Crick as the Orwell Prize; see below) at University College London, home of the Orwell Archive; in November 2016 the Orwell Lecture was given byIan Hislop.Previous lecturers includeRowan WilliamsandHilary Mantel.In 2017, the Orwell Foundation and the Sir Bernard Crick Centre re-established a new Orwell Lecture in the North at the University of Sheffield: the inaugural lecture was given by Turner Prize-winning artistGrayson Perry.

In 1993, Crick established theOrwell Prizewith sponsorship fromThe Political Quarterlyto honour political writing. Initially, two awards were given out each year – one for political journalism and the other for a political book. The first awards in 1994 were received byAnatol Lievenfor his bookThe Baltic Revolutionand toThe Independent on SundayjournalistNeal Ascherson.Crick was on the judging panel until the 2007 awards. BBC official historian ProfessorJean Seatonbecame Director of the prize in 2006 and the prize became a registered charity (The Orwell Foundation) in 2015. The Foundation awards four Orwell Prizes – for political journalism, political writing (non-fiction only), political fiction and Exposing Britain's Social Evils – and hosts regular debates, lectures and events, including the Orwell Lecture. Judging panels are appointed each year. In 2008, Crick became active in supporting "Orwell Direct",a website dedicated to the life and works of Orwell created byDione Venables,which later becameThe Orwell Society.

Ideas

According to Crick, the ideologically driven leader practises a form of anti-politics in which the goal is the mobilisation of the populace towards a common end—even on pain of death.

Anti-behaviouralism

Crick's first book,The American Science of Politics(1959), attacked the behavioural approach to politics, which was dominant in the United States, and little known in Britain. He identified and rejected their basic premises: that research can discover uniformities in human behaviour, that these uniformities could be confirmed by empirical tests and measurements, that quantitative data was of the highest quality, and should be analysed statistically, that political science should be empirical and predictive, downplaying the philosophical and historical dimensions, and the value-free research was the ideal, with the goal of social science to be a macro theory covering all the social sciences, as opposed to applied issues of practical reform.

Publications

Crick's works include:

• The American Science of Politics(1959)
• In Defence of Politics(1962, and five subsequent editions, the last in 2002)
• Political Theory and Practice(1963)
• The Reform of Parliament(1964)
• Parliament and the people(with Sally Jenkinson) (1966)
• Essays on Reform(1967)
• Crime, Rape and Gin: Reflections on Contemporary Attitudes to Violence, and Addiction(1974)
• Essays on Political Education(with Derek Heater) (1977)
• George Orwell: A Life(1980; revised 1982; revised and updated edition, 1992)
• Socialist Values and Time(1984)
• Socialism(1987)
• What is Politics?(with Tom Crick)
• The Labour Party's Aims and Values: an unofficial statement(with David Blunkett) (1988)
• Essays on Politics and Literature(1989)
• Political Thoughts and Polemics(1990)
• To Make the Parliament of Scotland a Model for Democracy(with David Millar) (1995)
• Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools(akaThe Crick Report) (1998)
• Crossing Borders: Political Essays(2001)
• Democracy: A Very Short Introduction(2002)
• The Commons in Transition(with A. H. Hanson) (1970)
• The Future of the Social Services(with William Robson) (1970)
• Protest and Discontent(1970)
• Taxation Policy(with William A. Robson) (1973)
• The Discourses by Niccolò Machiavelli(1974)
• Political Education and Political Literacy(with Alex Porter) (1978)
• Unemployment(1980)
• National identities: the constitution of the United Kingdom(1991)
• Citizens: Towards a Citizenship Culture(2001)
• Education for Democratic Citizenship(with Andrew Lockyer) (2003)

External links

• Bernard Crick:"Big Brother belittled",The Guardian,19 August 2000.
• Online version of Crick's biographyGeorge Orwell: A Life
• The Orwell Prize
• Trevor Smith,"Sir Bernard Crick" (obituary),The Guardian,19 December 2008
• Sir Bernard Crick Archive